Imagine that unfortunately you have just broken your arm. Right now, you are on the way from the hospital to your GP carrying a large envelope containing X-Rays – you are a data carrier, in the truest sense of the word! This in the age of gigabytes, data transfer, cloud and the like. Would it not be useful, if everything were available online, your pictures and results in a central place where they could be seen by anyone at any time? This is not necessarily a utopia.
You will already have heard about the idea of electronic health records and electronic patient files. In some countries, this is already a reality, for example in Sweden, where all medical data is sent to such a file. In Austria, the electronic health cards (ELGA) have been introduced and are being rolled out nationally. With the eHealth Law, Germany also has a timescale for the introduction of electronic patient files (Epa). In 2018, German patients should have access to their data.
In a process that has taken many years, Switzerland has recently agreed on the statutory introduction of the electronic patient file (ePD) and made it a requirement for Hospitals from 2020.
Here at LRS we have been engaged in the IT Process around documents and output management for over 30 years. We have already experienced many different scenarios in our projects: secure printing with authentication at the printer, mobility in the clinic through mobile devices and printing to any device, automation of processes, automation of documents from different places into a bundle, capturing barcodes, printing labels in the laboratory or document workflows for a trouble free, secure process.
Digitization and data have become a part of our lives. Whether smartphone, Facebook or an online bank statement - digitization has already become commonplace and in many industries is already quite advanced. In patient care however it is still in its infancy. At the same time, it is about networking and communication – and documents are an indispensable component of the communication in the healthcare sector. They need to be readily available when necessary for treatment, they must be complete and correct and confidentiality is obviously an important topic.
Our customers include many clinics in various countries. See for yourself – on our website, you can find information on our healthcare solutions and our customers. At the end of March in Switzerland, we are holding an event where we will present two new projects in this area. An important Swiss hospital is engaged in a detailed look at this topic and has installed our software, as has a clinic in Potsdam/Berlin.
Both projects have shown how LRS output management is an important component in the digitization of a hospital on the way to electronic patient files.
See for yourself what our Healthcare sector solutions can achieve. Look at the healthcare projects on our website and visit our events – you will be very welcome!