Electronic Health Records
This section of the application provides medical providers with a centralized platform to manage patient data, including medical records, medications, and treatment plans.
While interoperability with external systems is outside the scope of the Elixir project, it offers a secure solution for managing patient records within its platform. With Elixir, medical records, prescriptions, and progress notes are encrypted in the database, ensuring data privacy and protection.
One feature of the API is the ability for patients to grant read access to specific healthcare providers on the platform. This means that patients have control over who can access their records, enabling them to share vital information with other healthcare professionals involved in their care. By selectively granting access, patients can facilitate collaboration and ensure comprehensive medical decision-making. Granting read access of a medical record to a healthcare provider automatically grants read access to other data in the EHR system.
The benefits of this feature include:
Improved Patient Care:
This feature helps healthcare providers provide better and more coordinated care by giving them a complete picture of their patients' health histories.
Better Collaboration:
Elixir.io facilitates communication and collaboration between healthcare providers, enabling them to work together to provide the best care for their patients.
Increased Patient Engagement:
Elixir.io's patient portal empowers patients to be more involved in their own care, improving patient satisfaction and outcomes.
These advantages are felt in the following characteristics:
Management of Medical Records:
For the creation of a patient’s medical record, this can be done by any or both of the following:
The doctor assigned to the patient for medical care
The consultant to whom the patient’s doctor answers
Administrative users have permission to get and read all medical records in the database. Patients can also get information from their medical records.
Once a medical provider creates a health record for a patient, they are automatically granted read access to that record. A patient can also grant or revoke read access from other medical providers with their email address.
Data Encryption
Some data properties of a medical record are encrypted; these include the patient's demographic details and the medical provider responsible for the record. This provides some form of identity privacy for both parties. However, this feature is not done with MongoDB's data-at-rest feature but with custom code, with the help of the aes-encryption package.
Encryption Tip: If this project should be cloned, the secret key should be a generated
256-bit character.
These encrpyted data are then decrypted during read action for authorized users.
Each of the party (administrator, medical provider and patient) have their own special endpoint to which they can read a medical record.
Deletion of medical records can only be performed by an administrator. However, for successful deletion, prescriptions and progress notes tied to records must be deleted first.
Modification of Medical Records
When it comes to medical records, it is generally recommended that existing records are updated rather than creating new ones. This is because medical records are legal documents that contain important information about a patient's health and medical history, and they should be maintained in a comprehensive and accurate manner.
Updating existing medical records can help ensure that healthcare providers have access to the most up-to-date and relevant information about a patient's health, which is critical for providing effective care. This can include updating records with new diagnoses, medication changes, test results, and other important information. That is why in this application, a patient is only allowed to have a single medical record.
Prescriptions
While a patient is only allowed to have a single medical record that can be updated; they can have multiple prescription data that cannot be updated, tied to their medical record. Reason being that it is generally recommended that new prescriptions are created rather than updating existing ones. This is because prescriptions are legal documents that contain specific instructions for a patient's medication, including the drug name, dosage, and frequency of administration. If changes need to be made to a prescription, it is generally best to create a new prescription that reflects the updated information.
Access to a prescription is restricted to the patient's medical provider, or who the patient grants read access to their medical record, and the patient themselves. Just as the medical record is encrypted, a prescription is also encrypted.
Prescriptions can only be deleted by an administrator.
Progess Notes
Progress notes are very important for medical records in electronic health records (EHR). Progress notes document a patient's medical history, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment plans, and progress made during the course of treatment. They provide a detailed and chronological record of a patient's health status and care, and are crucial for effective communication and coordination of care among healthcare providers.
They are an essential component of medical records in EHRs, and play a critical role in providing high-quality patient care.
For progress notes, existing data can be updated, and new progress notes can be created.
Access to a progress is restricted to the patient's medical provider, or who the patient grants read access to their medical record, and the patient themselves. Just as the medical record is encrypted, a progress note is also encrypted.
Progress notes can only be deleted by an administrator.
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