The Effectiveness of Using Electronic Medical Records for Disease Registries in Saudi Arabia: A Systematic Review

Background: Disease registries are essential in healthcare systems because they make gathering, analyzing, and managing patient data for specific diseases or disorders easier. The introduction of electronic medical records (EMRs) has transformed how healthcare information is captured, stored, and shared. This study looks into the efficacy of EMRs for disease registries, focusing on the benefits, obstacles, and possible results of their use. Methods: A thorough systematic review was undertaken to assess the usefulness of EMRs for illness registries, which included papers, publications, and reports from various scholarly sources and healthcare databases. The study provides numerous critical findings that shed light on the benefits and drawbacks of using EMRs in disease registries. Results: The use of EMRs in illness registries has various advantages. The electronic format improves data quality and completeness by decreasing human and transcription errors frequent in paper-based systems. EMRs also make data collecting, integration, and sharing more efficient among healthcare practitioners, academics, and public health authorities, fostering collaboration and supporting evidence-based practices. Furthermore, EMRs provide real-time data processing and reporting, allowing for the early detection of illness patterns, the monitoring of patient outcomes, and the evaluation of treatment efficacy. Conclusion: When deploying EMRs for illness registries, however, numerous issues must be considered. Because of the sensitivity of patient health information, privacy, and security concerns emerge as important factors. To protect patient confidentiality, adequate precautions such as robust data encryption, access restrictions, and specific privacy rules must be in place. Furthermore, standardization of data items and coding methods across various healthcare systems and organizations is essential for easy data interchange and interoperability.