Quarterly News report 2 – June 2010
File : Distance Education , the MESRS National Project
When querying the Google search engine on the "Personal Medical Record", there is more than one and a half million web pages shown (only in French), it means that this subject is more than important, it is strategic.
The introduction of the electronic health record (EHR) has a colossal importance because of the multiplicity of actors it involves and the legal and technical challenges it raises. In such project, the most concerned person is the patient, possibly more than thirty million people in Algeria!
According to Wikipedia, the "Personal Medical Record" aims to make available to physicians, with the patient's prior consent, medical information (medical history, results of laboratory analysis, imaging, on-going treatments) that is provided by other physicians (general practitioners, specialists or hospital workers) defining a medical profile of each patient.
Its first goal was to provide the physician with the most comprehensive information so that he can propose the treatment or the most appropriate examinations, and also to avoid unnecessary repetition of examinations or prescriptions. The main obstacle to its use remains access security.
EHR aims to accelerate the ability of all actors to produce and share securely health data in order to better coordinate care.
As a dematerialized document, the EHR allows each insured person to access to his online health information and share it with professionals. It is one of the main levers "of the deployment of e-health services."
By offering patients full access to their medical data and the ability to ensure control, the EHR allows them to become more involved in their own health care.
The EHR is designed to improve medical care. Indeed, it facilitates communication between different health professionals that the patient is required to visit, and encourages sharing useful information for the proper coordination of healthcare. For example, it avoids redundant medical procedures or drug interactions.
Dr. Meziane Abdelkrim
Senior Researcher
Information systems and multimedia systems division