Column
Dear doctors: say to your patients,
“Your health is in your hands”
Dr Rashid Khan makes the case for better health record storage systems
Example of bad handwriting
A
I’m sure most
doctors have
gone through
similar
scenarios
where the
patient
gives wrong
information
and they
would have
caused more
harm than
good.
72
MAY 2020
few years ago, I worked as a district hospital
medical officer. A 50 year-old Indian male
rushed into the emergency department with
severe chest pain and was sweating and breathless.
An ECG showed ST elevation, meaning a likely
heart attack from a blocked artery. I had to ask him
questions before I started my treatment and was
pretty sure I asked him whether he was allergic to any
drugs. He was in pain, so he shook his head signalling
“NO”. I ordered aspirin to be chewed and prepared
to send him to the cardiac specialist hospital for an
emergency angiogram.
His wife, who just finished registering the patient,
rushed in and shouted “STOP!!” as my staff nurse
was about to administer the aspirin. The wife said he
was allergic to aspirin and had been intubated two
years ago due to a severe anaphylactic reaction. My
heart stopped for a second. I would have “killed” him
instead of saving him.
I’m sure most doctors have gone through similar
scenarios where the patient gives wrong information
and they would have caused more harm than good.
We can’t blame the patients for not memorising
medical jargon or scold them for not bringing their
old medications. Sometimes, hospital records are not
up-to-date, and it can take hours before we get them
during an emergency. Worse, some of us can’t even
read our own colleagues’ handwriting.
One possible solution to all this in Malaysia is
that the government is expected to implement an
electronic health records (EHR) system that will help
collect patients’ health information by the middle
of this year. But unfortunately, not all doctors are
tech-savvy, and many are not even keen to use the
keyboard to key in medical records, while some are
afraid that they will expose themselves to medicolegal
issues if they use EHR. Moreover, most doctors
doubt the security of EHR systems since Singapore
had suffered two breaches of its government health
database in 2019, with hackers stealing the personal
data of 1.5 million people, including that of the
Singapore Prime Minister. So, it will take years before
we can see a fruitful outcome from the introduction of
EHR.
Patient Health Records (PMR)
Nevertheless, we are all privileged to be living in the
digital era. For example, we can now access all kinds
of information from the palm of our hands, including
about our health, such as allergy records and our
past
asdf medical histories, which can all be stored in our
smartphones.
GlobalHealthAndTravel.com