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Oracle has launched an offline-friendly addition to its electronic health record (EHR) software.
Earlier this month, the software giant announced the general availability of Oracle Health Community Care, an extension of its Oracle Health Foundation EHR.
Although Oracle Health Community Care is a cloud service, it’s also designed to work offline, so healthcare professionals carrying out home visits or community clinics in areas where mobile connectivity is sparse can still access information about their patients.
Oracle Health Community Care is particularly aimed at healthcare professionals who are working in rural areas, where connectivity may be poor or non-existent.
Figures from the mobile trade body the GSMA, found last year that around 350 million people are outside of mobile coverage. “Uncovered communities are predominantly rural, poor and sparsely populated,” the GSMA added.
According to the ITU, around 83% of the urban population could access the internet in 2024, compared to 48% of those who lived in rural areas. The ITU estimates that, of the 2.6 billion people without internet access in 2024, 1.8 billion of them live in rural areas.
Oracle Health Community Care provides offline access to patient records and allows health care workers to update patient records when they’re outside of mobile connectivity. The system will update any changes to the master record once the healthcare professional reaches mobile coverage again.
The software allows healthcare professionals to review patient demographics, recent blood tests and scan results, access patients’ histories. They can also update records: documenting patient visits, updating each patient’s list of diagnoses or symptoms, charting observations such as blood pressure and temperature, and requesting new investigations.
Late last year, Oracle Health announced a major overhaul of its EHR, bringing in artificial intelligence to speed up tasks such as preparing patient documentation and arranging follow up. It also introduced natural language search for querying patient records and AI-created overviews of patients’ health histories or recent contacts with healthcare professionals.
According to analysts Roots Analysis, the global electronic health records market is expected to be worth $41 billion this year, growing to $93 billion by 2035.
Oracle is the second biggest provider of EHR software for acute care in the US, CNBC reported recently, behind Epic Systems. Oracle stepped up its presence in the EHR market when it bought EHR software provider Cerner in 2022 for around $28 billion.
