Clinical Workflow and Work System Assessment of Private Clinics in Hong Kong and Implications for Electronic Medical Record Development

The objective of this study is to perform a pre-implementation assessment of workflows in private primary care clinics in Hong Kong. Data were collected through direct observations and in-depth semi-structured interviews from December 2009 to March 2010. Seventeen health care providers (5 physicians and 12 clinical assistants) of five local private primary care clinics participated in this study. Our findings 1) illustrate the work and information flow and step-by-step details of clinical work processes and 2) reveal gaps and weaknesses in the current clinical work system for possible application of an electronic medical records (EMR) sharing system. This preliminary EMR pre-implementation study demonstrates the inadequacy of the current work system and work processes and indicates the improvement opportunities offered by information technologies.