PRIVATE medical practitioners are being encouraged to lead the charge into medical technology integration.

According to two young medical practitioners, it would be in the best interest of all patients if doctors right across medical care facilities were able to access a patient’s medical record in the case of an emergency so as to quickly diagnose and/or treat a patient becauseas it could make the difference between life and death.

“A lot of time there is delayed care in the emergency room because you just don’t know what is happening to the patient, you don’t know the past medical history. So you [person transporting patient] come, you drop off somebody, and they’re gone; or something happens to you on the road, somebody picks you up and just lands you there but you are not conscious,” Dr Adrian F D Coore, a founder of High Yield Clintegration (HYC) Medical, expressed as a reason medical integration is important.

Medical integration begins with the transferring of medical files electronically before they can be shared on any digital system. “The good thing about electronic medical records is that it allows you to upload the written notes, so everything that was backdated from the 90s can be put on the system so when I access it, I can see the written notes plus the notes that would have come subsequently,” added Dr Garrett-Dijan Fairclough, founder of HYC Medical, in an interview with the Jamaica Observer.

So far, Medical Associates Hospital, University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), and Andrews Memorial Hospital all have an electronic documentation system that works for medical practitioners within the institution — however it’s still not integrated in a way wherein other medical facilities can access patient information seamlessly using one system.

“I at UHWI can’t say to you, ‘You know what? We are on the system, can you give e-access to the notes?’ You have to print it physically and you, the patient, carry it to UHWI. So if you have something to hide, or something drops out or wet up you then don’t; they don’t tend to email those things, ” Dr F D Coore revealed to the Business observer.

They added that electronically transferring medical records will be seamless and can eliminate the uncertainty or lengthy wait times associated with medical records requests. “The document [gets] lost, [[we]can’t find it, it was signed out to somebody who never returned it, can’t find the doctor, can’t sign it off — it’s almost impossible a lot of times,” cited Dr F D Coore as common reasons for the delay in receiving patients’ medical records from other facilities. “So if I move to the US, you come here, you just print your notes or we just e-mail it to your doctor and they can access the system, rather than you going somewhere and you have your cue card that you write on and over time it gets brown, and the colour goes, and you can’t read it,” Dr Fairclough stated.

According to the doctors, the problem lies with Jamaicans who are “locked in archaic thinking”. With technology comes resistance and reservations. “Jamaicans are naturally a bit resistant and suspicious of stuff,” said Dr F D Coore. But in this case, they believe having an electronic documentation system will allow for confidential data to be protected.

“You go into a doctor’s office and you have all kinds of files lying there. I pass it, I see Jane Brown’s name, and I can read everything that is on it. When it’s [patient’s record] encrypted on the computer where you have no access, you need a password. It’s so secure that I can’t go on the computer and sign in; I have to go on my phone and then use the code to sign in on the computer, and you have a card that you are given that has your information,” shared Dr Fairclough.

A system like this would, however, be more complicated with the public health system as both doctors acknowledge that for public health, there is a long way to go, especially for securing the computers in an emergency unit with limited space.

“There are so many problems that exist in public health that technology, while it’s important, but when you can’t even source basic medications and equipment when you need a heart test and all the machines are broken down, [and] there are many other issues that we can talk about — hence why I said the private sector has to lead the charge,” Dr Fairclough said.

He explained that private medical facilities have a duty to ensure the patient experience is significantly more improved than public health care, and in private doctors’ offices it needs to be modernised. This is also in hopes of these processes being replicated within the public health sector.

“There are so many things that need to be fixed that I can understand that might not be the priority right now, but at least in private settings like this we should push for that,” he said.