The Complete Guide to ELN for Healthcare and How it is Revolutionizing the Industry

An ELN (Electronic Lab Notebook) is one of the new inventions that have changed the way things work in the field of research. The main reason behind its success is the fact that it has significantly simplified the way research documentation has worked for years, due to the flexibility and ease that it brings to the field. 

However, there’s more to it than that, because of late, ELNs have been used for more than just research documentation and reproducibility. Many corporations in the healthcare industry, for instance, have started using ELNs to simplify many of their records and documents as well. 

If you’re in the industry and are thinking about purchasing an ELN for your team or company, then keep reading to find out the many different ways in which an ELN has been used in the healthcare industry over the last few months, and how it’s expected to change things in the coming years. Let’s get started.

A Centralized Data Management System

Let’s start with the most important part—managing data. Different companies have struggled to solve this issue in different ways over the years. While some may be fool-proof, most of them do have their ups and downs along the way, because data management (especially when it comes to critical data) is no joke and can be a hassle—without the right tools to help. 

Here’s where an ELN comes in—not only is it extremely easy to add in, find, and retrieve data, but it’s also useful when it comes to sharing that data with multiple individuals.

ELN is usually powered by the cloud, so this gives companies the flexibility of cross-collaboration across multiple teams. What this means is that at any given moment, anyone on the team or in the company can immediately access all the data using an ELN. 

You may be wondering why this is such a big deal in the healthcare industry, so let’s take a moment to walk you through all the documents that can be saved in an ELN. Right from your visits to the doctor and digital versions of doctor’s notes, to Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Electronic Medical Records (EMR)—there are a number of documents that have to be saved (for numerous patients) and all of these come under Health Information Management (HIM). 

Naturally, it takes up a lot of time, space, and energy to manage this data in a way that’s safe, secure, and accessible for all. And that’s why the industry has started adopting ELNs as a way to simplify the process of data management. 

A Comprehensive Analysis of Each Patient

When there’s a way to manage data efficiently, it automatically influences the way other aspects of the industry work as well. For instance, by using a centralized data management system via an ELN, the industry has been able to create a detailed and comprehensive view of each patient, including their specific needs and medical conditions.

This has enabled medical professionals to make better predictions by looking at a well-documented profile of each patient. 

A Guide to Care for Every Patient

Previously, it may have seemed impossible to keep track of all the special needs that are needed for every patient. However, with the use of an ELN, the industry has been able to keep track of records better, which in turn have helped them contact and notify patients about their important reminders and suggestions for care and medication, based on what their records contain of the individual’s health and status. 

By doing so, the industry has also been able to receive an increased engagement with the patient, due to the extra effort of sending timely reminders and guidance. 

An Improved Way of Handling Health Concerns

Here’s one of the best ways in which ELNs have helped in revolutionizing the healthcare industry—by having copious documentation of patients, illnesses, and health records of people living in different zones and populations, medics have been able to analyze the data they possess and make interesting predictions about the health trends among specific populations and regions.

What this means is that they’re able to identify health concerns that are yet to be fully recognized, and come up with proactive ways of preventing the problems from affecting the said population. 

For example, if a certain region has been seen to suffer from a type of seasonal flu, medical professionals will be able to use this data from the past, understand the cause and symptoms, and come up with ways in which it can be prevented in this and neighboring regions before too many individuals are affected. 

Effective Collaboration Across the Industry

No matter how many times there are changes in the data (names, regions, medical professionals, problems, etc), this won’t be an issue because any changes made to the existing data will be immediately reflected across all the platforms when using a centralized ELN.