HDW204 My Health Record: Improving Patient Care and Health Equity in Australia-Report

Introduction:

 Digital innovation has changed the data retrieving process and information technology sector by solving various problems and challenges faced by the healthcare field. Hospitals have adopted digital innovation of Electronic Health Record, as studies proved that mortality rates significantly decrease as compared to hospitals that have not implemented EHR. Thus, Australian healthcare organizations adopting this technology, spent about $1.8 billion in the year 2018 to implement electronic health records EHR (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2019). Due to this large amount of data can be available and accessible to all healthcare professionals at all times because of the adoption of Information and Communication Technology (Kateryna et al., 2020).

Jensen et al. (2016) states that "Patient-facing technology" refers to any technologdesigned specifically for patients and can be anything from a full web portal to any type of internet service. They interact with the healthcare system like any other person. Where such services include electronic health records (EHRs), portals, smartphone applications, wearable devices, online peer support networks and sensors. The key feature of any patient-centered system is that everyone can facilitate patient engagement with the healthcare system and its providers.

For this purpose, digital literacy is a necessity and defined as an ability to utilize technology to contribute and participate in the modern world socially, culturally, politically and economically which includes the fundamental elements of Information Technology (IT). Many studies have shown that the level of digital literacy influences staff engagement with IT. Lack of experience and poor skillset negatively influence Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Whereas, Electronic Health Record has a positive impact on patient safety and quality of life. Therefore, given the increasing use of technology in healthcare, healthcare professionals must be digitally literate (Kuek & Hakkennes, 2019).

Discussion:

According to Kuek and Hakkennes (2019), English-language studies in the pharmaceutical field suggest that staff in hospitals and community pharmacies in Australia, Canada, and the United States lack digital skills and literacy. Furthermore, a Scottish survey found that nurses did not feel digitally equipped, leading to a lack of confidence in the use of information technology. A study questioning nearly 4,000 nurses in Australia found that their experience and confidence in using information technology was limited to basic computer applications. Similarly, research surveying the use of computer hardware and software found that nurses in the United States working in community hospitals had low levels of digital literacy. Although there are studies examining the level of digital literacy of health professionals and their attitudes towards computers, the Australian literature is scarce and more needs to be done.

Electronic Health Record:

Healthcare organizations are digitizing medical records; this is a technique, where patients' clinical data has started being stored as Electronic Health Records (EHRs). EHRs contain complete medical history in a format that can be easily shared between different healthcare providers or accessed through different linked locations whenever required. In today's technological era, healthcare providers generate large amounts of clinical data daily which is stored in the central data repository for hospitals. The data contained in the EHR is also utilized for various secondary purposes such as automated disease monitoring, clinical research, and clinical audits for quality improvement. However, in recent years using data for secondary purposes without consent or with consent has raised privacy concerns. Secondly, EHR data is also made available to various stakeholders including different government agencies in different geographical regions through wired or wireless networks making it vulnerable to cyberattacks and also making it difficult to enforce strict data protection laws as in some cases data is shared with entities subjected to specific regional laws (Shah & Khan, 2020).

Vos et al. (2020) states that electronic health records are being adopted to deliver high-quality care by supporting coordination, collaboration, and shared decision-making. Healthcare providers can instantly view the patient's medical history, laboratory results, and other relevant information.

My Health Record:

Developed countries like Australia have adopted digital health record transformation or e-health revolution to empower patients, improve healthcare practices of healthcare professionals, and promote cybersecurity through “My Records Apply Healthcare” to provide consumers with a holistic and positive experience as per the needs of the modern era. Yet managing healthcare records traditionally is also difficult. Thus, the main objective is to promote and adopt healthcare IT and innovative digital healthcare technologies such as “My Medical Record” by empowering patients to take control of their medical records and providing them the choice to select their healthcare provider and move forward with the treatment (Colnar et al., 2022).