The Electronic Patient Record (EPR) South Africa

Abstract

Physicians drown in the amount of information engulfing their day-to-day tasks.The invention of the patient record was the first step towards bringing order to this situation Worldwide, however, numerous problems are experienced with the paper medical records (PMRs) that have been in use in medical practices for the past few years. The obvious answer to these problems is an electronic patient record (EPR). In South Africa (SA) the EPR is not generally used, despite its well-known potential advantages. Focusing on general practice, an EPR research project was therefore undertal<en at the UFS. Despite some problems that were foreseen beforehand, a clear impression was gained that SA GPs believe in the concept of the EPR. Consequently two prototype EPR systems were developed and evaluated. The second prototype addressed the PMR and potential EPR problems and explored the majority of potential advantages of an EPR.