Standards and Guidelines for Electronic Medical Record Systems in ...

Section Introduction
Within the health setting, EMR Systems coexist with several other systems such as Laboratory
Information systems, Pharmacy Information systems, the District Health Information System and
Demographic Surveillance systems. Exchange of information between systems is important for
several reasons, including increased efficiency through decreased entry of duplicate data,
decreased errors in medical information through the same mechanism, and increased availability of
health information promoting better clinical decision making and improved continuity of patient
care.
The following definitions apply to this section;
· Interoperability is the ability for a system to securely communicate and exchange data in
an accurate, reliable, and meaningful way with another information system so that the
clinical or operational purpose and meaning of the data are preserved and unaltered.
· Actors can be people or information systems
· A task is a structured set of steps
· Use cases describe the specific reasons for a task that requires the transfer of information,
and the steps required to complete that task. Use cases are descriptions of tasks by actors.
· Transactions are the specific information interactions that support each step. Transactions
are implemented by specifying one or more standards and describing how they are to be
used.
This section defines standards to be used in the exchange of clinical information in Kenya.
Implementation of these clinical data standards will ensure that data in an EMR system are
available and meaningful in another system, whether that system is a lab system, the national HMIS,
a district health information system, or another EMR at a different health care facility.
This section is targeted at EMR system developers and program managers. It is designed to enable
developers to integrate data exchange functions into their systems, and to outline EMR systems and
their implementation in relation to other health information systems.
Standards and Guidelines for Electronic Medical Records Systems in Kenya 41