Surveys and Paper-based medical records

Our survey work is going well as we are nearing our goal of 180 patients enrolled.  Having been exposed to some of the workings of the health system here for a few weeks now, I can understand the urgency expressed at the eHealth conference for South American countries to better utilize technology to improve efficiency.   Healthcare workers here in Ecuador work hard to provide the best care possible, but they are limited by still having to rely on paper based medical records.  This makes it very difficult to access patient information quickly.  Moreover, only one person can access a medical record at a time.  Information is transmitted to multiple departments for tracking purposes with handwriting (which if it is anything like mine is far from reliable) and carbon copies.  It’s impressive that so much gets done as well as reminds me how much we take for granted when using electronic medical record systems. 

However, switching to electronic medical records requires significant resources and coordination.  While the centralized public health model here provides order and consistency, it is hard to imagine the resources appearing for such an investment.  The need for low cost electronic medical records solution here is great and hopefully as electronic medical records become standard throughout more developed areas, lower cost solutions will emerge to make this possible in lower resource areas.  It would certainly make life a bit easier here in the hospitals of Quito, Ecuador.