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Artificial Intelligence in Health Optimizing EHRs to support AI

blocks to make up any national foundation for successful as made possible by the adoption of well-governed open-
digital health adoption. These are described in Table 1. access standards, such as openEHR.
Without such high-level government-focused ecosystem- Multidisciplinary and multi-sector collaboration
wide collective initiatives and leadership, digital health requires a change in mindset for many. The benefits of new
transformation will continue to be compromised due to and emerging technologies used to design and implement
continuing fragmentation. The greater use of a compatible next-generation EHRs are huge. The use of generative AI
set of technology and data standards worldwide is in clinical settings can only be reliably achieved when
translatable to the greater benefits and opportunities for
advanced data analytics and reliable AI applications. EHRs are optimized throughout the entire global digital
health ecosystem.
Every jurisdiction needs to determine how best to
govern, manage, and provide strong leadership for each Acknowledgments
of these entities to facilitate the optimization of EHRs We thank Heather Grain, Co-Director, eHealth Education
enabling AI and to meet desired health outcome objectives. Pty Ltd for undertaking a final review and supporting this
Many health systems already have some of these building work.
blocks in various forms.
Funding
5. Conclusion
None.
This review of the current state of data availability, and
data quality suitable for AI development and use, has Conflict of interest
revealed that we have a long way to go to achieve our aim
of optimizing EHRs to serve as a data source for AI use. It The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
became clear that most jurisdictions, mega-EMR vendors,
and many newcomers are all tinkering at the edges by Author contributions
building on and working with current legacy systems Conceptualization. Evelyn Hovenga
and infrastructures. It is encouraging to see that some Writing – original draft Evelyn Hovenga
jurisdictions have bucked the trend of continuing to make Writing – review & editing: All authors
incremental improvements by embarking on major digital
health transformation strategies to build and implement Ethics approval and consent to participate
next-generation systems and infrastructures. We have Not applicable.
identified the need to transform high-level jurisdictional
infrastructures. These infrastructural building blocks need Consent for publication
to be designed to govern and provide strong leadership
enabling ecosystem-wide compliance with mandated key Not applicable.
sets of standards. Such standards need to enable flexibility Availability of data
at every point of care to ensure that data/information needs
are able to be met in a timely manner for every stakeholder, Not applicable.
and all users.
References
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of every national health system. Many of us working in United Kingdom: OpenBook Publishers; 2023.
the digital health field continue to be frustrated by the doi: 10.11647/OBP.0335
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with digital health by senior decision-makers driving 3. Hovenga E, Hullin C. Global collaborative leadership
investments, procurement, policy, and legislative solutions. challenges and economic drivers. In: Hovenga E, Grain H,
The digital health knowledge domain is huge, both in depth editors. Roadmap to Successful Digital Health Ecosystems.
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Volume 1 Issue 3 (2024) 21 doi: 10.36922/aih.3056