Impact of Electronic Medical Records on Healthcare Delivery in Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital Lynn Waithera 1 , Joy Muhia 1 and Rogers Songole 2* 1 Member of Young Professional Chronic Disease Network (YPCDN), Beyond Science Initatve (BSI), Kenya 2 Department of Mental Health, MOI University, Kenya * Corresponding author: Rogers Songole, PhD Clinical Psychology, Senior Lecturer in Mental Health, MOI University, Kenya, Tel: +0721 208 676; E-mail: rogerssongole@gmail.com Received date: November 24, 2017; Accepted date: December 18, 2017; Published date: December 22, 2017 Citaton: Waithera L, Muhia J, Songole R (2017) Impact of Electronic Medical Records on Healthcare Delivery in Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital. Med Clin Rev. Vol. 3 No. 4: 21. Copyright: © 2017 Waithera L, et al. This is an open-access artcle distributed under the terms of the Creatve Commons Atributon License, which permits unrestricted use, distributon, and reproducton in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Despite electronic medical record (EMR) systems being in existence since 1972, it’s only recently that governments worldwide have begun to encourage digitalizaton of medical records (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, n.d.). With EMR systems being the current way of hospital management and also delivering healthcare in Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital (KTRH), there is need for a review of their impact and to understand the challenges faced in their adaptaton and use. The objectve of the study was to determine the impact of EMR on healthcare delivery in KTRH. A cross-sectonal qualitatve study was carried out in KTRH among healthcare providers. An interview guide was used to collect data which was coded and analyzed using content analysis. The study revealed that the EMR systems have led to an increase in the productvity of healthcare delivery, beter clinical decision making and beter collaboraton between healthcare providers. The major challenges identfed were shortage of funding for the adaptaton and utlizaton of the EMR systems, computer illiteracy among staf and shortage of ICT staf in the facility. The EMR systems in KTRH have had a great impact on health care delivery system by increasing collaboraton between personnel, increased productvity of health care providers bringing about patent and provider satsfacton. There is need to increase the amount of funding for the utlizaton of the systems, to employ more ICT staf and carry out refresher training to the staf so as to increase the benefts of the EMR systems and tackle the shortcomings. Keywords: Electronic medical record; Digitalizaton; Impact; Productvity; Healthcare delivery Introducton An EMR system is defned as an electronic record of health related informaton on an individual that can be created, gathered, managed and consulted by authorized clinicians and staf within one health care organizaton. They have the potental to provide substantal benefts to physicians, clinic practces and health care organizatons (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, n.d). [1] another term used interchangeably with EMR is the Electronic Health Record (EHR) that are digital records of health informaton that ofer more functons than EMRs as they focus on a patent’s total health not just the standard clinical data. Background of the study Despite electronic medical record (EMR) systems being in existence since 1972, it’s only recently that governments worldwide have begun to encourage digitalizaton of medical records. In Kenya, the Ministries of Health (MOH), i.e., the Ministry of Medical Services and the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitaton, are actvely promotng the standard implementaton of EMR systems with the aim of improving health care delivery, health systems management and patent health outcomes. Several EMR systems exist in Kenya to collect and manage data, analyze data, manage patents or hospitals, provide administratve/management support and to manage external systems such as supply chain management. Statement of the problem Since the adaptaton of EMR systems, numerous reviews for example (Ministry of Health Kenya, 2011) [2], have the systems not to address the minimum functonal requirement categories which the EMR Standards and Guidelines for Kenya (ESG) deem important for defning standards for EMR systems. With EMR systems being the current way of hospital management and also delivering healthcare in KTRH, there is need for a review of their impact. This study aims at reviewing Research Article iMedPub Journals www.imedpub.com DOI: 10.21767/2471-299X.1000062 Medical & Clinical Reviews ISSN 2471-299X Vol.3 No.4:21 2017 © Copyright iMedPub | This article is available from: http://medical-clinical-reviews.imedpub.com/ 1