Electronic Health Records

An electronic health record collects patient information digitally so that it can support care beyond an isolated paper document. In Iran, a central initiative is SEPAS, the national electronic health record project developed under the Ministry of Health and Medical Education. A study published in 2023 describes hospital information systems transferring demographic details, diagnoses, procedures, investigation results and billing information through nodes hosted by medical universities to ministry databases. This describes an exchange architecture; it does not establish that every patient has a complete, continuously accessible clinical history. s1

The distinction matters because a repository can accumulate information without becoming a tool routinely used at the bedside. In the study’s 2021 setting, SEPAS primarily stored hospital encounter information, and physicians and nurses were not its direct users. Health information management personnel handled transfers. The researchers’ evaluation raised concerns about stability and patient-care benefits, showing why technical coverage and practical usefulness should be assessed separately. s1

Primary care has a different documentation environment. SIB, the Persian abbreviation used for the Integrated Health System, was designed to collect community and primary-care information as a basis for electronic records. Its functions include documenting demographics, screening, immunization, diagnoses and prescriptions. A 2024 research article reports that it had been in use since 2015. These functions should not be confused with proof of seamless exchange between SIB, hospitals and every other service. s2

The same article examined childcare documentation in health centres affiliated with Kashan University of Medical Sciences. During fieldwork in 2020, providers completed realistic tasks while explaining their actions aloud. Researchers identified problems including information entry spread across multiple pages and recommendations that did not fit the task appropriately. Such findings reveal how the design of a record system can consume staff attention during a consultation. They concern selected tasks in a local study, rather than all SIB functions or its condition at the editorial cutoff. s2

Interoperability also depends on agreement about what a field means. Research conducted in 2015 and published by the World Health Organization in 2020 examined Iranian hospital records, software documentation and SEPAS materials to develop a minimum data set. Its administrative and clinical categories illustrate the work needed before information from different systems can be compared reliably. The publication presents a proposed data specification, rather than evidence that every hospital subsequently implemented it. s3