While many sectors of society have shifted to digital means of recording their data, most physicians working at small hospitals and clinics continue to write their patients' records on paper.
However, a joint venture between Satit Viddayakorn, a major shareholder of Bangkok Dusit Medical Services (BDMS), and an Indian investor, hopes this will soon be a thing of the past. The venture, Convergence Systems, is introducing an affordable electronic medical-record system to the local market.
"We expect 30 per cent of small-scale hospitals to use our services within the next two years," Satit said in an interview on sidelines of the recent inaugural conference of the Healthcare Leader Development Association of Thailand.
With the exception of large hospital chains like BDMS and Bumrungrad, hospitals and clinics in Thailand have not yet shifted from paper to electronic medical records (EMRs). This is partly because moving to an EMR system costs more than Bt10 million.
However, Convergence Systems will offer EMR on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis, eliminating the need for its clients to invest in any hardware or other upfront costs, including software licensing fees. A hospital or a clinic will pay a monthly subscription fee amounting to only Bt1,000 to Bt3,000 per user account, depending on the size of the clinic or hospital, he said.
Convergence Systems will launch its SaaS-delivered EMR system at the next meeting of the Private Hospital Association later this month.
Satit said small hospitals would enjoy the same benefits as big hospital chains that had already deployed EMR, including reduced costs, improved patient flow and improved patient care.
"Previously, at many branches of the Bangkok Hospital [chain], maids would have to carry in more than 100 additional seats in front of the medical rooms every Saturday [to serve the patients]. But after the change of the system, all the chairs have gone," he said.
Another benefit of the EMR system is that patients will have online access to many services, including booking out-patient rooms and checking their laboratory results. "Hospitals will SMS to patients that they can now see their lab results [at the patients' Web portal]," Satit said.
Patient safety, quality improvement and competitiveness are among the factors boosting expansion of EMR deployment in Thailand, he said.
Convergence Systems' business development director Tilak Kola said that unlike traditional healthcare systems, which involved limited parties, the "collaborative care" concept, enabled by technologies like EMR, helped all participants in the healthcare ecosystem, including doctors, hospitals, clinics, patients and laboratories, to connect and collaborate for better delivery of care.
"This will enable the sharing of data, which will bring other benefits, such as to medical tourism. Patients will be able to access their data from anywhere. For example, foreign patients may get their initial treatment in Thailand and follow it up in their home countries," he said.