Electronic medical records

Benefits for selected stakeholders related with implementation of e-health solutions in medical facilities

In the Act in the matter of information systems in health care, legislation specifies that from 1 January 2018, the facilities performing medical activity are obliged keep medical records exclusively in an electronic form. Objective: he objective of the study was to assess the benefits brought about by the implementation of IT solutions in medical facilities, both from the qualitative and quantitative aspects, calculated per financial resources. Materials and method: During the period January-March 2016, an analysis was performed of selected medical facilities directly or indirectly supervised by the Ministry of Health. Conclusions: A total number of 18 qualitative and 4 quantitative benefits were diagnosed. The total amount of social benefits handled in financial values corrected in accordance with general assumptions of economic analysis is more than 1 billion PLN within the period of 10 years. Such considerable social benefits are the best evidence that the implementation of IT solutions in medical facilities is a highly cost-effective process, which improves the quality of health care.