Stefanie Giddens joins us as a new #OKGNtech columnist, starting with the first edition of Medtech News. 

Connecting the Disconnect

You can book a trip online, pay your credit card online, or order a pizza, but typically, booking time with your doctor needs to be done by phone call or in person.

This is just one of the many challenges that many organizations across Canada are working to solve in healthcare.

QHR builds technology for doctors and their patients and one significant product that they have developed is an electronic medical record (EMR) platform.

It might not seem that revolutionary, but having doctors across Canada use an EMR in their practice is the first step in connecting the fragmented healthcare system in Canada.

What might come as a bit of a surprise to you, is that the most common way that doctors communicate, is by fax.  Yes, fax. This is because in Canada using email breaks privacy laws that protect health information because email is not a secure or guaranteed way to keep the data in Canada. Fax is slow, expensive, and archaic.

So, why is technology so important to solving the disconnect in Canadian Healthcare?  Simply put, paper cannot connect – technology can.

By using an EMR it creates a platform for doctors so that they can securely connect, collect, transmit, store and analyze patient health data.  From this platform, doctors today using EMR can allow patients to book appointments online, as well as securely communicate messages to patients and have secure video visits.  They can also send prescriptions electronically to pharmacies and securely communicate back and forth with pharmacists.

With a world so accustomed to instant information and technology at our fingertips, it is fascinating that healthcare is finally finding ways to securely communicate between disparate systems to advance patient care and solve the disconnect we have all likely experienced.

And, with technologies like online booking, we hope booking a doctor visit will one day be as common and as easy as pizza.

Connect with the author Stefanie, Director of Marketing at QHR.