Historical Context of AI in EHR

*Note at about 55 sec the slide should say EHR: Electronic Health Record. However, an Electronic Medical Record is the same thing as an electronic health record and the terms are interchangeable. *

Historical Perspective Key Points

Let's begin with what a healthcare record is since this is the basis for what is stored electronically is:

• Health Record: A patient's documentation of their healthcare encounters and the data created by the encounters across time
• EHR: Electronic Health Record

Health Records have been around for a very long time. As the need and capability arose to transition from paper to electronic medical records, EHR was born. There was even a law created to help this along. You might have heard of it. HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, was passed in 1996 to address this. You'll learn more about this in the EHR Data Security section of the course.

• HIPAA: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

EHR is also commonly referred to as

• EMR: Electronic Medical Record

Moving from Written Records to Electronic Records

The transition from paper to electronic records not only led to brand new systems for storing and collecting EHR data but also for the need to translate all of the old paper data into something usable by these new systems.

That's a particularly great job for AI! But there are many many other potential uses for AI with EHR.

AI in EHR Opportunities

A few other fantastic uses of AI in EHR Include:

• Mapping of our genes in Genomics
• Analyzing data from clinical trials
• Predicting a diagnosis for patients

There are many others, but these are few that are seeing some of the most traction right now.

That's it for your history lesson on EHR. Now that you have a little background, we'll discuss the current landscape for EHR Data and AI.