IJN to embark on EMR system next year
LONDON: The National Heart Institute (IJN) will embark on an electronic medical record (EMR) system next year as part of its strategic information technology plan to be a paperless hospital.
IJN chief executive officer Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Azhari Yakub said the system would be the key integrator of various modules at the government-owned private hospital.
“We believe it will move us forward in terms of patients’ safety, efficiency, cost containment and giving the patients better experience.
“They can make appointments from their cell phones as well as get medical records from IJN,” he told reporters on the sidelines of his visit here with his team to three hospitals in their efforts to implement the system and to seek collaboration on research and clinical care.
Dr Mohd Azhari said the hospital had allocated a RM45mil budget for its seven-year strategic IT plan.
He said that over the past three years, IJN has put in place several IT modules for its imaging system, hospital information and financial system.
“Once we have implemented the EMR, we will move to other modules such as automatic drug dispensing and scheduling,” he said, adding that automatic drug dispensing would reduce error in dispensing medication.
On IJN’s business plan, Dr Mohd Azhari said the hospital would look to increase its intake of foreign patients, of which the majority now are from Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam.
“We hope in the future more patients from the Middle East and Bangladesh will seek treatment at IJN. We will be able to make our services known to the foreign market.”
On the IJN private wing, Dr Mohd Azhari said architectural plans were being drawn up for its expansion and hoped to start the project which covers a 2ha plot by 2019, with completion in four years.
“It will have 120 hospital beds and an additional 900 parking bays, while the paediatric outpatient clinic will be there,” he said, and that IJN would cater to more private patients upon completion of the IJN private wing.
“We are looking at between 40% and 50% of our patients to be private patients in five years time. Currently, 30% of our patients are private,” he said.
The increase in the number of private patients would render IJN more financially sustainable, he added.
“We would be able to pursue cutting-edge medical technology and spend more on education, research and development.
“Our mission is to make IJN’s latest state-of-the-art technology available to the rakyat and still able to treat public patients,” he said.
Dr Mohd Azhari said the IJN Foundation would also contribute between RM3mil and RM4mil a year to help poor patients at its hospital.
Funds from the foundation will also go to free medical check-ups for poor folk in rural areas, he added.