Paper or Electronic Medical Records and Transactions

Paper or Electronic Medical Records and transactions?. To answer this question, let us supposedly think of any advanced medical informatics product such as an e-clinical trial system (regardless of its phase), a clinical study, or a disease registry that needs to be carried out electronically. When it says electronically operated health system, we have to know that any of these e-health research products are nothing but the most challenging medical I.T. rules, standards, and privacy guidelines type of projects. NOW, what do you think will happen?

An intelligent remote medical informatics system should be developed, tested, quality controlled and assured before a single piece of information is collected, processed, analyzed and published. The system shall take over the A to Z operational processes and procedures of any given study or trial when it is ready to be launched. That is, of course, under the direct supervision of the study-related coordinating center (steering committee and investigators). The e-medical system is appealingly programmed to capture designated and decided-on medical data accurately, securely, and responsibly using very organized intelligent methods. So, the data can be tracked and analyzed. All related outcomes are recognized and immediately approved by the health authorities and the medical communities as trustworthy, error-free, and way-far reliable than paper records. Because non-electronic records possibly have human errors, they take more time to get processed, analyzed and accomplished. Also, accommodate a meagre number of subjects to recruit and study compared to electronically operated medical projects.

A cutting-edge medical informatics system could be a clinical research/study, clinical trial, clinical registry, therapeutic platform, or patient support program. No matter what it is, it is built to operate and automate the medical industry-related requirements, standards, and procedures to make each step of a particular project, study, or research more efficient, human-error-free and easy to manage. Such specifications will result in strict protocol compliance. Also, clean, faster and robust data management. Moreover, close monitoring, precise audits, multiple inspections, cross-check verification, and unsurpassed real-time reporting and analysis while meeting all related regulations and guidelines is a matter of fact.

Imagine this medical informatics system/technology with additional features, like fire-walled back-end databases of multiple layers of encryption. While on the investigation sites, it is state of the art secured private portals with user-friendly interfaces and control panels that make access to all Logistics links easier and all in one place. That is, starting from the study protocol, consent forms, case report forms, ......., and ending with a comprehensive automated reporting system and online analysis; what do you think would be the answer: Paper or Electronic?