Chen Lianzhong of JoinHope: Human-Centric, Intelligent, and Regionally Integrated Systems Define the Future of Electronic Medical Records in China's Healthcare Big Data Era

With the implementation of national policies on big data in health and medical care, electronic medical records (EMRs), as one of the foundational databases, have been gaining increasing prominence within hospital information systems. Addressing the development challenges of EMRs in the context of healthcare big data, VCBeat (WeChat Official Account: vcbeat) conducted exclusive interviews with experts from several of China’s most representative EMR companies.

Beijing Goodwill E-health Information Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2005, with a registered capital of RMB 141 million and over 700 employees. Goodwill E-health specializes in the software development and system construction of clinical information systems for healthcare. It has established independent product lines and professional implementation teams in areas such as electronic medical record (EMR) systems, clinical pathway systems, mobile healthcare systems, electrocardiogram (ECG) information systems, surgical anesthesia systems, and hospital information integration platforms.

After years of development, Goodwill E-health Info Co.,Ltd. has become a leading enterprise in the field of electronic medical records in China. Its business scope extends across China, excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan regions.Over 20 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions, there isMore than 1,000 hospitalsClient.

To gain insight into Goodwill E-health Info Co.,Ltd.'s progress in electronic medical records and healthcare big data, VCBeat conducted an exclusive interview withChen Lianzhong, Deputy General Manager and Technical Director of Beijing Goodwill E-health Information Technology Co., Ltd.。

Chen Lianzhong, Deputy General Manager and Technical Director of Beijing Goodwill E-health Information Technology Co., Ltd.

Based on different stages of development, electronic medical records can be categorized into the following types:

The first phase focused on digitization, so the most prevalent products were electronic medical record (EMR) systems centered on document digitization, representing the earliest form of EMRs.

The second phase focuses on management, with functions such as medical record management, quality control, and workflow management added to electronic medical record (EMR) products.

The third stage, that isSince 2014, the focus has shifted primarily to serving physicians, leading to the emergence of more specialized electronic medical record (EMR) products, such as those for dentistry and obstetrics.

After years of development, the Goodwill Electronic Medical Record (EMR) System has accumulated rich clinical data resources, providing hospitals with comprehensive clinical information services for clinical operations, management monitoring, standardized management, and research data collection.

Embedded in Goodwill E-health's Electronic Medical Record System"Clinical Dataset"，Leveraging the central role of electronic medical records (EMR) in hospital informatization, all clinical data aggregated into the EMR system are processed through“Clinical Dataset” Standardization, Including Unified Definitions and Grouping，To lay a solid foundation for data queries based on standardization and regional informatization.

As data continues to accumulate within the system, hospitalsof CDRPopularization, data from electronic medical records began to be aggregated in a more standardized manner，More auxiliary models and early warning models are emerging. Goodwill E-healthalso began to transition toward electronic medical recordsExploration in Phase IV——Intelligentization. For most hospitals,The Popularization of CDRsStill Some Time Away. The intelligent application of electronic medical records, if withoutSupporting CDR is difficult to achieve.

The application of electronic medical records in healthcare big data primarily converges on clinical intelligence, a phase that encompassesThree Features:

1、Humanization: Developing in the direction of improving the quality of medical services and providing decision support.

2、Intelligence: Modeling, predicting, and performing online analytical processing on large volumes of data to uncover new information and knowledge, thereby providing users with valuable insights and a basis for decision-making;

3、Regional Integration: Moving toward unified information systems within hospital groups and the integrated development of regional healthcare services.

Healthcare IT companies face significant restrictions when attempting to obtain data from hospitals. Once an agreement is reached between a hospital and an IT enterprise, the data is typically provided by the hospital’s big data center; for hospitals without such a center, thenfrom the backup repositoryChinaExtract data.

Hospital documentation often contains a significant amount of formulaic content. Meanwhile, quality control and data utilization in hospitals involve data structuring. This requires electronic medical record (EMR) editors to meet structural requirements while integrating free-text entry capabilities.

Currently, the vast majority of electronic medical record (EMR) companies develop their products through EMR editors. The advantage of an EMR editor lies in its ability to standardize the structure of medical records, thereby holding out the promise of achieving data interoperability of electronic medical records across hospitals.

Goodwill E-health’s structured electronic medical record (EMR) editor eliminates the complete disruption of existing data caused by adjustments to database table structures. Its independent storage approach enables users to continuously refine templates and improve documentation efficiency. Furthermore, all accumulated clinical data can be leveraged as a hospital resource repository following standardization processing.

The structuring of electronic medical records (EMRs) primarily focuses on standardizing symptoms and signs that are clinically significant for differential diagnosis. For physicians, this is a key measure to improve healthcare quality. Although some domestic EMR products offer intelligent assisted entry features, many doctors still prefer to delete these prompts and enter data freely. If physicians rely entirely on free-text entry, it becomes extremely difficult to implement effective quality control.

Goodwill E-health’s approach is to prevent the deletion of critical nodes. To this end, the company has configured certain nodes within its products that require physicians to mandatorily check them when submitting documentation. The use of medical record templates significantly enhances both the overall structure of medical records and the substantive content of key data points, which is also a prerequisite for hospital quality control.

Quality management of inpatient medical records is a key focus of hospital medical quality management. With the adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs), it is necessary to provide more advanced and effective management methods and tools for the quality management of inpatient medical records. Quality monitoring and management of EMRs can fully leverage their digital characteristics to implement dynamic process monitoring of various quality indicators, in accordance with the requirements of the Ministry of Health, provincial health departments, and hospitals. This system automatically records the content and completion time of each documentation item in the medical record, assesses whether the quality meets the required standards, and performs scoring and grading.

More importantly, the electronic medical record (EMR) system automatically alerts healthcare providers based on dynamic monitoring results, enabling them to make timely improvements and enhance the quality of medical documentation and healthcare delivery. This allows hospital leadership, medical quality management departments, department heads, and healthcare providers to promptly review and track issues related to medical records and healthcare quality through the software system, thereby facilitating real-time dynamic management.

The large Grade A tertiary hospitals served by Goodwill E-health Info Co.,Ltd. also initially started fromElectronic medical records (EMRs) were only introduced in 2008. Previously, many hospitals used Microsoft Word for medical record documentation. To leverage these historical records, they can be structured through data structuring processes.

Proper structuring of electronic medical records (EMRs) will be highly beneficial for the depth of data extraction in post-structuring processes. Post-structuring processing,refers toCurrentlyAI Proposalmorenatural language processing technology.

Traditional internet-based natural language processing mostly involves tag-based processing, such as keyword extraction. However, medical data is not that simple, because theybetweenIncludesofRelationshipNumerous, the data model is relativelyForComplex.

Post-structuring is primarily applied to address issues with historical medical records, making hospitals' legacy data usable., Accessibility. Goodwill E-health's electronic medical record system for historical medical recordsMiddleDescriptive content that is not explicitly subjective is processed using post-structuring techniques. Objective and explicit data are handled through structured processing.

With the implementation of the tiered diagnosis and treatment policy, large hospitals have assumed responsibility for treating complex and critical cases and conducting scientific research, while primary healthcare institutions focus on the treatment and rehabilitation of chronic diseases and common conditions.

The hospital’s scientific research primarily encompasses three areas:

1. Basic Research;

2. Through clinical validation, translate scientific research into substantive clinical diagnostic and therapeutic technologies;

3. Apply and promote scientific research achievements.

For physicians, conducting scientific researchThe driving forces are threefold:

1. Scientific research is the proof of clinical technical level;

2. Research capabilities can help physiciansApplication for Research Grant；

3. Research capabilities can demonstrate a physician's academic standing.

As the core of clinical data, electronic medical records serve as the primary source for research data.

At this stage, the scientific research application of electronic medical records is mainly due toCaused by non-standard documentation in electronic medical records.

Most electronic medical records are authored by less experienced physicians, rendering them often unsuitable for direct utilization and necessitating significant time investment from clinicians to extract data from historical case files.

As a result, electronic medical records have gradually become a tool for medical record inspection, making it difficult to assess the value of their content. Therefore,Difficult to Apply to Scientific Research。

Datalevel of understanding, dataofSupply-demand dynamics and data application scenarios are obstacles hindering the development of big data in healthcare.。

Many informatizationCorporate Data CollectionAdoptRather generaldata in the manner ofCollection，Often, there is no clear objective. In fact, not only do systems vary across different vendors, but each hospital’s managementModeNor are they entirely identical. ThisRegardingLead toEnterpriseData Generated by Electronic Medical RecordsandInterpretation of DataSignificant differences emerged。

Moreover,Different hospitalsDepartmentofDataThere are also significant differences, and the generation of these data involves time factors.Nodeof the issue, at different timesNodedata, and their implications also differ. Therefore, the application of big data in healthcare must take into account its multidimensional nature.

The data value of electronic medical records (EMRs) depends on the specific application scenarios. The data dimensions required for hospital-based scientific research differ from those needed for clinical decision support. Therefore, EMR vendors must establish robust data model relationships.

HealthThe Biggest Barrier to Medical Big Data，YesEnterprises toUnderstanding of Medical DataDegree, rather than technology. Goodwill E-health's advantages in big data，It is precisely based on a profound understanding of medical data.

Technology is merely an auxiliary tool; there are no significant technical barriers in either natural language processing or search engines.

RegardlessHow to Make Electronic Medical Records Intelligent: They Are AlwaysOne setBusiness System。The promotion of health big data policies has facilitated the adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs) in more healthcare institutions, such as secondary hospitals and primary care facilities, marking a shift in the customer base.But what value does data sharing generate for all parties involved, particularly among medical institutions of different tiers?, only thenYesDetermine the Extent of Data Opennesskey. However, at the current stage, stableSupply and Demand RelationshipNot yet fully formed。

The diagnostic and treatment rationale for medical cases can be regarded as a hospital’s proprietary asset. Requiring hospitals to contribute all such assets without reservation indirectly undermines their core competitiveness.。Therefore, at this stage，It is difficult to achieve in the true senseInter-hospital DataInterconnectivity.Many projects have becomeCompliance-driven work under administrative mandates,HospitalProvided data, oftenAll areCourseScreeninginformation, difficult to generateApplicationValue.

Comprehensive health IT enterprises focus more on operational business, such as Hospital Information Systems (HIS) and Hospital Resource Planning (HRP) products, covering the management of personnel, finances, and materials. In contrast, clinical informatics—including medical care, teaching, and research—is the strength of Goodwill E-health Info Co.,Ltd. With the widespread adoption of Clinical Data Repositories (CDR) in hospitals, system decoupling has become easier, enhancing interoperabilitySystemofDemand begins to graduallyDecreased.

In such circumstances, hospitals gradually began toAdopting a More Vertical Approach, Specificityproducts of healthcare IT vendors, thereby gaining greater flexibility.

Currently，Goodwill E-health Info Co.,Ltd. already possessesOver 1,000 Partner Hospitals,IncludingOver 400 tertiary hospitals and more than 800 secondary hospitals.