Connecting care – unlocking the potential of Electronic Health Records to unite patients and providers
Presented to WCIT Medicine & Health Panel – Feb 19th, 2025 by Gilbert Pant and Ken Hoffman
We were very fortunate to welcome experts from both the UK and the US to discuss the persistent challenges and future potential of electronic health records (EHRs) in modern healthcare.
Gilbert Pant is one of our liverymen and has recently co-authored a book with Ken Hoffman on this critical subject area, so it provided a great opportunity to hear the ideas first hand.
The discussion opened with reflections on decades of struggle to create systems that truly support clinicians rather than merely fulfilling administrative or financial requirements. Gilbert recounted his journey from a successful career in banking and technology in the Middle East to pioneering medical record systems in the UK. He described his experiences developing practical EHR solutions for the NHS and later collaborating on projects in the US, noting that current systems often impede rather than enhance patient care by burdening doctors with excessive data entry.
Ken Hoffman, a veteran clinician with military experience, provided insights from the US perspective, emphasizing that fragmented records and misaligned priorities prevent healthcare providers from accessing comprehensive patient information. Together, they advocated for a transformative, patient-centred model—a unified health record accessible across settings that integrates data and also supports tailored clinical applications. This approach would ultimately improve efficiency and care quality while working alongside existing systems without disruptive overhaul. Examples of successful case studies in Korea were highlighted.
Overall, the panel stressed reengineering EHR systems to better support patient care rather than be focussed on the needs of the service providers.
A lively Q&A followed, which highlighted the numerous challenges in this area. One bright note was that smaller countries with less developed health care infrastructure could more easily be transformed by an integrated patient system and may offer a good example for more established system to follow.
A recording will be made available shortly
The book is available here.