The Use of Electronic Health Record in Greece: Current Status

The deployment of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the health care sector and, especially, in hospitals offers great potential for improving the quality of services and reducing organizational expenses. This paper focuses on the utilization of ICT in the Greek health sector and, more specifically, on the use of Electronic Health Record (EHR) in the context of an Integrated Health Information System (IHIS). Extensive reference is also made to the relevant literature concerning ICT adoption to other developing countries in the Americas, Europe and Australia. A thorough description of ICT adoption and the steps that have been made towards the IHIS implementation in Greece are provided, while some suggestions regarding the current status of the use of EHR in Greece are made, taking into account the experience of adopting such systems in the other countries.