Improving care through a shared medical record

Coordination of care is essential to ensure optimal patient care. In an often fragmented health system, the lack of smooth communication and information sharing can lead to medical errors, redundant treatments, and unnecessary costs.

Numerous national shared health records initiatives are aimed at giving patients greater control over their health and facilitating the creation of international health records. Fewer are the initiatives of companies offering a system that allows patients to be actors in their health while offering business software to their caregivers.

It is in this context that Instamed has developed a new type of shared medical file., centralizing all patient health information and accessible to all health professionals, whether in town or in hospital, in France or abroad. This initiative aims to improve the efficiency of care while laying the foundations for a truly integrated international health system.

The importance of a shared medical record

Using a shared medical record has a number of advantages:

• Save time and reduce costs: Health professionals often spend much of their time looking for information scattered across different systems or clarifying poorly documented consultation notes. With a shared medical record, they have access to comprehensive and structured information, significantly reducing the time spent managing records.
• Improving communication: Hospitals often have an information system (IS) that centralizes their main information but does not incorporate information from other IS used by their health professionals. In addition, hospitals suffer from communication problems with local medicine as well as with examination centers (biological analysis laboratories, anatomopathology, radiology, etc.), which often leads to a lack of timely information and a waste of time for all actors.
• Patient involvement: Patients, who are often forgotten in this equation, are directly concerned. Instamed offers them an application through which they can manage their health, add their health professionals and communicate directly with them. After five years, tens of thousands of active patients are using the application, and the network is constantly growing, testifying to the success of the initiative.

The medical network: key to an optimized health system

Instamed is distinguished by the creation of a true medical network, which is the key to an optimized health system. This network makes it possible to create a link between all the health professionals in a clinic, as well as with all their correspondents from other hospitals, city offices, as well as home care providers. By unifying these various actors around a single medical file, Instamed allows fluid communication and exemplary coordination of care. Each professional can add information and access information in real time to information updated by colleagues, thus reducing the risk of errors and improving the quality of care. This network also includes secure internal messaging, connected to MSSSanté secure messaging, avoiding the decentralization of information and the sending of documents by insecure means.

Case of a patient in France

Take the example of a patient in France suffering from chronic diseases requiring the intervention of several specialists. With Instamed, his general practitioner, cardiologist and diabetologist can access the same updated information in real time. Each new consultation, laboratory result or treatment change is immediately shared with the entire healthcare team, ensuring consistent and effective care. The patient, as a stakeholder, can also participate in updating his file, by adding documents or by completing medical self-assessment and quality of life questionnaires (patient reported outcomes).

Case of an international patient

Now let's imagine a patient coming to France for specialized treatment and leaving home with his Instamed medical file. By inviting his health professionals in his country of origin to access his file via Instamed, he guarantees the continuity of care without interruption. Doctors in her country can view her complete medical history, previous treatments, and test results, which facilitates a smooth transition and ongoing management of her health.

Bases of an international health system

This initiative lays the foundations for an integrated international health system. By allowing patients to easily share their medical records with healthcare professionals in different countries, Instamed facilitates the continuity of care across national borders. Health professionals can thus collaborate more effectively, ensuring coherent and comprehensive care. In an increasingly globalized world, where international travel for professional or personal reasons is frequent, Instamed is a solution to the heterogeneity of medical information systems.

Adoption and ownership of the solution

The increase in the use of the Instamed application is significant. After a period of adaptation, users take full ownership of the tool and spend more and more time using it.

According to internal data, the rate of active use of the application among patients increased by 35% in the first six months after creating their account, the subsequent use of the application being highly dependent on their health status and pathologies. However, a telling example comes from patients treated in a clinic in 2020, cured of their pathologies and continuing to use Instamed on a daily basis for their medical follow-up.

Health professionals, for their part, have largely adopted Instamed, whether they are hospital practitioners or private doctors. After sharing a certain number of patients with subscribing users, many have adopted Instamed as their main business software, thanks to its ease of use and the significant time savings in their daily practice. Health professionals report a reduction in time-consuming administrative tasks and better efficiency in coordinating care, which translates into more human time devoted to their patients and therefore an improvement in the quality of care provided.

Conclusion

The establishment of a shared medical file such as the one offered by Instamed has transformed the coordination of care, both for health professionals and the patients concerned. It not only saves time and money, but also significantly improves the quality of care. Health professionals, whether in the city or in the hospital, can work together by accessing complete and up-to-date information, thus ensuring optimal patient care. For international patients, Instamed offers continuity of care without borders, ensuring that their medical records follow them wherever they go. This advance marks a turning point in the way in which health care is administered and coordinated, for the benefit of all actors in the health system, first and foremost patients.

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