The Silicon Review ^Asia

Electronic medical record (EMR) systems, often defined as the electronic record of health-related information on an individual, can be gathered, created, consulted, and managed by authorized clinicians and staff of healthcare organizations. These systems have the potential to provide significant benefits to clinic practices, healthcare organizations, and physicians. Moreover, these systems can facilitate workflow and drastically improve patient care quality and patient safety. By storing the digital records within an EMR system, we can greatly reduce the need for storage for the paper-based records. One of the added perks of using EMR solutions is that it has proven to improve efficiency dramatically in the healthcare segment.

One of the standout providers for the EMR solution is Origin Integrated Studios. The company was founded in 2015, and it is based in Kuala Lumpur. Origin Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is the solution offered by the company. It is an application that focuses on the digitalization of hospital clinical workflow processes by transforming manual data capturing from traditional paper medical records in folders to capturing through digital forms and stored digitally, thus eliminating the use of paper by medical professionals in transcribing medication and writing their notes. The main value is the product is built on reducing the cost of paper handling. Origin was the first to successfully implement modern technology EMR application to the healthcare industry in Malaysia that focuses on reducing the use of paper. EMR is not a new term in the market, but not many Asian companies have successfully provided a comprehensive solution to meet the needs of medical professionals. Origin EMR can be integrated into any third-party Hospital Information System (HIS), or connected directly to Origin HIS. By providing simplistic user interface designs, the solution allows doctors to either type or writes clinical notes using a lightweight Tablet PC/notebook. Writing on the Tablet PC feels no different than paper. Everything in Origin EMR is template driven and designed using the Digital Form module for CPOE. Customized your own favorite medication list, lab, and radiology orders when you connect other sub-systems such as Laboratory Information System (LIS), Radiology Information System (RIS), Picture Archiving Communication System (PACs), wearables and medical devices such vital signs monitor dengue test device, and blood glucose meter in the hospital together through HL7 protocol. Coupled with Origin HIS, Origin EMR is the information superhighway with a data repository/warehouse for clinical research. This composition is known as the Origin EMR-on-HIS.

In conversation with Kenneth Kee, CEO of Origin Integrated Studios

What is the difference between EMR and EHR? Explain.

The terms electronic medical record (EMR) and electronic health record (EHR) are often used interchangeably. However, an EMR and an EHR serve many different purposes, despite sharing certain characteristics. Both an EMR and EHR are digital records of patient health information. An EMR is best understood as a digital version of a patient's medical records, clinical notes, and charts. It contains the patient's medical and treatment history from patient visits to discharge summary. By contrast, an EHR contains the patient's records from multiple doctors of different healthcare providers and provides a more holistic, long-term view of a patient's health. It includes their demographics, test results, medical history, history of present illness (HPI), and medications. Both EMRs and EHRs help make healthcare more efficient and less costly. But to go beyond basic clinical data and focus on the total health of each patient, the government will need an EHR solution. The Ministry of Health (MOH) of Malaysia is committed to ensuring that a national health IT infrastructure can be realized for hospitals nationwide.

Many healthcare technologies raise data privacy concerns. Tell us about the security measures you implement to protect confidential data.

There have been cases that information leaked through loophole found on devices that attached to the network. Healthcare providers have to protect both internal and external threats. Internally, healthcare providers will need to ensure that the internal network has to be checked for ransomware, Trojan horses, etc. by having a firewall installed with anti-virus and anti-malware software. On the database and application level, Origin always ensures that our customers are allowed to embed advanced security options such as database encryption technology and a digital certificate. It is the prerogative of the healthcare provider in allowing external access to their network and to our system through a VPN setup, which is normally secured.

Do you have qualified individuals who can help you maintain your service standards?

Since inception, Origin has been attracting talents of all diversity to join and grind with the core team members who have set the benchmark both in terms of quality and response time. Over the years, we have formulated our implementation support and service processes and procedures, turning them into a checklist supported by a helpdesk system for both our developers and support engineers in handling their daily activities with our customers. In Origin, we set a high entry-level for our newbies, providing them with on the job up-skill development to the highest standard in making sure we deliver above our customer expectations at all times.

Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

We will be launching our new services comprises of specialized modules for 'home nursing' and 'nursing home,' also known as the Assisted Living concept. Home nursing is not something new in the market. It has been growing steadily over the years for patients who cannot or prefer to get nursing services at their homes instead of going to the healthcare center for medical check-ups weekly. On the other hand, the nursing home is a new extension branch within the proximity of healthcare providers. There has not been any system in the past that focus on this, I foresee the growth in this market segment during lockdown because of COVID-19 and more guardians of the patients have no time to care for their elderly as they are busy with their daily routine at work.

Meet the leader behind the success of Origin Integrated Studios

A graduate in Information System 1998 from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, Kenneth Kee started his career as a Sales Executive serving one of the few independent regional ICT consulting companies in Asia. After 18 years as the company major in enterprise solutions sales in banking, manufacturing, and healthcare industries, He left when he was a Vice President of Sales for enterprise software solutions and remained as a Director until early 2020. In the early years serving the healthcare clients, he saw the healthcare system gap, notably lacking in the EMR and integration to systems. In mid- 2015, with his team of passionate and talented software developers, he ventures into this start-up to lead as a CEO of Origin Integrated Studios. All started from one hospital looking for hospital information systems with EMR.

“We are a people company that inspires young talent software developers and designers to make a positive difference in developing innovative and creative healthcare application software solutions of internationally recognized.”