As health systems around the world continuously pursue digital transformation, having access to all clinical content has now more than ever become crucial to provide the best patient care.

With enterprise access to clinical documents, medical images and other unstructured information, healthcare organisations will gain a more comprehensive view of their patients, improve clinical decision-making and support better outcomes.

Managing unstructured data is one of the major interoperability challenges for healthcare organisations, recent HIMSS 2022 State of Connected Care and Interoperability research highlighted. On average, more than 60% of health systems surveyed do not have unstructured patient records and medical images available for decisions at the point of care. EMRs alone typically do not natively incorporate the more than 75% of patient data that is unstructured.

At the HIMSS22 Asia-Pacific Conference in Bali this year, Hyland Healthcare – a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms for the past 12 years – will demonstrate how an enterprise content services and medical imaging platform connects unstructured content, medical images and data to ultimately accelerate business processes, decrease errors, streamline workflows and improve insights for decisions.

Striving for EMR excellence

HIMSS offers eight-stage (0-7) maturity models that provide prescriptive frameworks for healthcare organisations to build their digital health ecosystems. Achieving a Stage 7 validation on a maturity model serves as a global symbol of a healthcare organisation's dedication to digital transformation.

The HIMSS Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) is one of the maturity models that healthcare organisations strive to reach the highest validation for. Despite its significance, fewer than 5% of organisations in APAC who have undergone assessments have actually attained it. Most organisations (82%) also have not gone beyond Stage 0, or the first stage. 

"Stage 6 and 7 EMRAM-validated organisations are able to report reductions in medical errors, reductions in duplicate orders, improved readmission rates, higher operating margins, lower staffing costs, and higher bond ratings," said Andrew Pearce, HIMSS VP for Analytics and Global Advisory Lead.

Becoming digitally mature

In Australia, while most healthcare organisations are still in Stage 1, the Parkville Precinct hospitals in Melbourne are already leading the pack after recently getting validated for Stage 6 and 7 EMRAM and Outpatient-EMRAM, with the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) – a Hyland customer – attaining the highest accreditation for the latter. The RCH had gone through assessments for Stage 6 and 7 EMRAM and O-EMRAM simultaneously and virtually during the height of the pandemic.

"We wanted to use the assessment to drive us to make improvements to achieve the stages we were seeking, and to also obtain guidance on opportunities for future improvement," said Dr Mike South, chief medical information officer of RCH.

Recognising healthcare's interoperability struggles and determination to achieve digital excellence, Hyland Healthcare will set up a booth at the HIMSS22 APAC trade event to offer its expert knowledge on content services, optimisation of healthcare systems and practical ways to improve patient outcomes and increase overall satisfaction with patient experiences.

Look out for us during the event or get in touch with us to arrange a meeting in advance here, or call us at +612 9060 6405.