The IRC today announced that it is testing and plans to deploy an electronic medical records system called “Jedi” that will allow health care workers to record patient information in the high-risk areas of Ebola treatment centers.
At an Ebola treatment center, maintaining records can be a daunting task because of the elaborate precautions health care workers must take to prevent the virus from spreading. What would normally be one of their most important tools—a patient's chart —is another potential point of contamination.
In past outbreaks, paper records were disinfected and even incinerated. Health care workers have tried shouting out notations to a scribe or simply relied on memory. As a result, valuable information was being lost.
This is about to change.