Gearing up Clinical Management Systems for eHR Sharing
“Our system has been made ready for the Electronic Health Record Sharing System (eHRSS). We have furnished it with eHRSS compatibility. It is technically viable and deliverable, and the process was smooth.”
Mr Thomas Yau,
Founder of Softlink Medical Solution Limited
ClinicSolution is one of the clinical management systems in the local market that the Government is working with on eHRSS compatibility. It has been in business for more than 20 years. According to Mr Thomas Yau, the founder of the system and Softlink Medical Solution Limited, currently they have more than 2,000 users, covering private doctors, dentists, healthcare groups and laboratories.
“We are a medical application solution provider. Our responsibility is to provide what users need. Electronic record is only one of the ends. We focus on how to improve their overall clinical operations,” said Mr Yau.
Convenience and Efficiency for Users
Mr Yau said when healthcare providers (HCPs) choose a computerised system, they always look for convenience and efficiency. “This is in terms of not only system speed, ease of use and installation, functions and reliability, but also customer service and support,” he said.
Mr Yau said his company pays particular attention to customer service and support, and about 70% of the staff are customer support personnel. As far as he is concerned, customer support is not only restricted to their products. “We also help customers to solve other information technology (IT) problems and smooth out their clinical operations,” he said.
“Apart from system development, we make sure we have other IT development capabilities and skills to support the long-term business needs of HCPs and the healthcare sector in Hong Kong,” he added.
With the development of eHR sharing in Hong Kong, equipping existing clinical management systems with eHRSS compatibility can certainly help support customers' long-term needs. “With such compatibility, users can easily share data with the eHRSS in future if they want to,” said Mr Yau.
“The adoption process in our system will be seamless and transparent to our customers. It would only take a lunch break period to hook up to the eHRSS and will cost them nothing. The only thing they need is an updated version of our system,” he pointed out.
Smooth and Well Arranged Connection
In order to conform to the eHRSS standards, modifications to the format of clinical data were required in ClinicSolution, said Mr Yau. “We worked with the eHR Office of the Government. The process was very smooth and we did not encounter any major technical problems or constraints,” he said.
“The only challenge was with the Java interface. It was because our application would take up quite a lot of memory, causing some hiccups when running with the eHRSS. It took one to two months to fix the problem. After that, data exchange has become easy,” he added.
“The arrangements of the eHRSS team were good on both the technical side and data conversion. We were given sufficient time to perform the job. It was definitely a pleasant partnering experience.” Mr Yau said.
The ClinicSolution has now achieved level-two compliance with the eHRSS. Mr Yau said their target is level-three compliance which concerns drug lists and data.
Compatibility: Need and Opportunity
As a veteran in health informatics, Mr Yau said the eHRSS will benefit the IT industry, apart from bringing advantages to patients and HCPs.
He described the outlook of eHR sharing in Hong Kong as positive, as he believes more HCPs will be using computerised systems with the introduction of the eHRSS.
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