Abstract
The development and construction of an electronic medical record system requires a considerable work amount.
The present study sets forth, as a case study, the development process launched in January of 2004 at Nagoya City University Hospital. It describes the one year and three months’ process where the electronic medical record system went on stream. In the study, in order to make analogous classification about the 10 working committees for the development such as Electronic Medical Record System Committee, In/outpatient and Ward Working Committee, Nurse Working Committee, etc, a quantitative analytical approach to various indicators of the committees based on cluster analysis method was carried out. These indicators include the number of items considered, of man-days involved, of meeting held and of hours involved. As a result, it was suggested that adopting three large group committees for the 10 working committees was useful. The first group committee is directly involved in treatment, the second is indirectly involved in treatment, and the last is involved in specialized technology and LAN. In each of the 10 working committees, there was overlapping in the following indicators such as consideration items (the total number; 1,464), consideration hours (the total hours; 1219.5), working committee participants (the total number; 5424) and meeting times (the total number; 502). And by adopting the three large group committees, it was suggested that the total reduction ratio of each indicator was 18.0%, 22.5%, 25.3% and 23.5%, respectively. This kind of quantitative analytical approach to an electronic medical record system, even viewed in light of the efficiency of its system development, can be taken to yield significant results.
