The DIY Healthcare Revolution Will Be Digitized

Question: Why are electronic medical records important?

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey: Electronic medical records are, in a lot of ways, I think the aspect of technology that is going to revolutionize the way we deliver care. And it’s not just that we will be able to collect information, it’s that everyone involved in the healthcare enterprise will be able to use that information more effectively. The patient will be able to manage their own care because they will have the information about the results of their test. They’ll have information about the medicines that they are using. They’ll have information about the effectiveness of various kinds of treatments. The physician and the healthcare providers, the nurse practitioners, all of the people that are involved in delivering care will be able to work more as a virtual team and use that information to connect what is going on in the past, in their patient’s lives, along with the care that they are delivering at the current time. And the healthcare system will be able to use that information to manage health resources over the entire population, and to actually improve the quality of care by focusing on outcomes, focusing on the things that they can do as healthcare providers, to improve the probability of those positive outcomes occurring.