Recently, under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009, the US government made it mandatory for all hospitals in United States to adopt healthcare reforms and be connected to the Health Information Exchange, which meant details of 5,000 hospitals and 7,50,000 physicians in the US will have to come under one roof.

Now, city-based Optra Systems has developed a technology called Rapid EMR Adoption Methodology (REAM), which promises to transform paper-based medical records into electronic medical records. Optra launched REAM worldwide on Sunday.

Ream aims at helping health providers lower costs, reduce medical errors and easy data accessibility, thereby improving healthcare quality. “The methodology focuses on electronic medical records (EMRs) with modules on e-prescribing, clinical reminders, progress notes, lab and pharmacy integration, graphing and reporting,” said Abhijit Gholap, president and CEO, Optra Systems, which serves leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies in the US and Europe.

Patankar Nursing Home, located near Saras Baug, is the first hospital in the city to take advantage the technology. Optra has set up a BETA site at the hospital. “Since we have 3-4 clinics, maintaining data will now be easier and paperwork will reduce drastically. We have taken the technology module called Patientstick, under which portable smart drive will be used for data transfer across hospitals as a BETA site,” said Dr Amit Patankar, Patankar Nursing Home.

However, Gholap also feels REAM needs to be customised and modified for the Indian market. “That is why this BETA site will help us get user experience from Indian market perspective,” he said. Recently, Optra Systems was awarded Maharashtra IT Awards for Innovations 2009 for its contribution to digital healthcare.

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