Electronic health records (EHR) are digital versions of a patient’s paper chart and provide real-time, patient-centered records that provide information instantly and securely to medical providers. In addition, data can be shared nationally with other providers with different specialties and during emergency health events.

The Need

While EHR systems have revolutionized the healthcare system by rapidly providing patient data across the country, importing external data such as lab reports remains challenging. Often, medical staff must manually scan or import results and other documents, leading to a significant burden and decreased productivity.

The Technology

This technology describes a web-based document management system that automates the process of medical document management and optimizes manual entry of discrete data. It imports medical PDFs, images, and scanned documents into a specified folder. The software automatically routes the patient data to the appropriate location where the medical staff can review and authorize the documents. The inventors have created a beta version of the software and tested it showing functionality on a small-scale implementation within a transplant surgery unit, saving ~8 FTEs.

Commercial Applications

This invention can be used to import and extract data from external documents to be included in a patient's electronic health record.

Benefits/Advantages

The software could improve the accuracy, acquisition, and efficiency of integrating critical external documents (e.g., lab results) in an electronic health record. In addition, as it is entirely automated, it reduces the workload on medical staff and operating costs.