Origin Integrated Studios: Envisioning Paperless Healthcare

The Global Forest Resource Assessment claims that around 80,000 to 160,000 trees are cut down each day, in which a significant amount is used in the paper industry. This data can be juxtaposed with the paper usage in a medium-sized hospital with less than 300 beds serving 1000 outpatient per day and 250 beds of inpatient per visit. On average, a physical folder consisting of a patient admission would be around 40 A4 sheets for inpatients and ten sheets for outpatients. A long-staying patient could easily have more than 100 pages. This calculation gives an understanding of paper usage, summing up to more than 12,500 A4 papers per day. At this juncture, it becomes crucial to consider the amount of savings that could be done in terms of paper cost and the number of trees that could be protected if these hospitals could move on and embark on technologies such as Electronic Medical Record (EMR).

With this backdrop, arose the pioneer and one of the leading EMR solution providers to the healthcare sector across Malaysia, Origin Integrated Studios, promoting a paperless, environment-friendly solution to all its prospects and customers who are ready to join the digitalization journey with them. Kenneth Kee, CEO of Origin Integrated Studios, speaks about digitalizing the healthcare industry as “We here at Origin cultivate a culture of guiding and helping our customers in their transition from a traditional hospital to a digital hospital of the future.” With this motive of Kenneth, the company is moving forward with its customers to transform and impact the healthcare industry and save the planet.

Origin with the intention to eliminate the use of paper in the healthcare industry using digital technologies has developed its green technology product, Origin EMR, to transform hospitals from being paper-based to paper-less. The product focuses on the digitalization of hospital workflow by transforming manual data capturing in traditional paper-based medical records to digital forms and integrating with other subsystems. According to Kenneth, “Our goal is to achieve a target of over 95 percent of converting traditional paper to digital form-based information capturing in all our projects.” Hence, all information from the EMR can be retrieved on mobile and the patient portal without having to be printed on paper for patients. Besides, its multiple user-interface does not compromise on the data security as the medical records are protected by document versioning, user ID, and password along with regular audit log on changes.

Having the primary value built on reducing the cost of paper handling, Origin EMR increases operational efficiency and solves the customers’ problem by reducing the expenses on paper, ink, folder, human resource to manage, retrieval speed, physical storage space, and more. With this idea, the company has successfully implemented its technology and transformed many hospitals in Malaysia, and reduced expenses in millions on stationery and paper usage. Thus, Kenneth rightly says, “The greatest result of this initiative is saving the trees and lowering the cost of administrative charges (medical record folder) to patients.”

Origin EMR, developed with over ten years of industry experience, stands as the first comprehensive solution in Malaysia that meets the needs of medical professionals.

The product provides simplistic user experience and stands out amidst other EMRs by focusing on less time consumption for doctors/specialists. Origin EMR allows the doctors to generate clinical notes, either typed or written using a lightweight Tablet PC. The product enables clinicians to receive contextually relevant insights in the EMR without having to check reams of unstructured data. As everything in Origin EMR is template driven and designed using digital form module, it enables seamless integration of all subsystems and allows customized medication with no use of paper in between. The product is designed to meet the operational challenges by implementing efficient workflow, managing systematic document controls for a patient record, and organizing storage space to accommodate voluminous information.

The contribution of Origin EMR can be best understood with a case study. Loh Guan Lye Specialists Centre in Penang is one of the earliest projects handled by Origin. This 273-bed hospital was spending millions per year on storing and printing medical records on paper. With a new building of the hospital coming up, it wasn’t practical to handle the physical documents across the buildings. Also, the rising issue of space shortage to store the physical folders propelled the hospital to implement Origin EMR and discontinue the traditional way of storing medical records in papers and folders. Origin EMR addressed the issue of space limitation for the growing business and helped the hospital increase efficiency in the process flow by designing all the forms digitally and eliminating physical medical records.

With 5G taking long strides into Malaysia, Origin has made telehealth possible, where doctors can make their primary conclusion from analyzing the report generated digitally. Telehealth helps to reduce the expenses of patients to a great extent. To achieve this, Origin develops features and functionalities to support medical professionals with multimedia technologies. The company also works with several telco companies and government agencies to avail the use of high bandwidth for its customers through Origin solutions.

Along with the EMR, Origin has designed, developed, and implemented products, namely Origin Hospital Information System (Origin HIS), and Origin Clinical Information System (Origin CIS) to monitor a person’s health through digital services. Origin also provides automation solutions such as mobile applications and portable patient monitoring systems to meet the growing digitalization needs of its customers. With the use of predictive AI technology, the company is working on integrating patients’ clinical data across departments to enhance efficiency and allocate resources accordingly. Origin is thus in an endeavor to transform the healthcare industry with unique software solutions.

Origin Integrated Studios started in 2015 with just one hospital, has over 30 successful implementations in just four years. With more than ten years of experience in the healthcare industry and in-depth knowledge in the hospital process flow, the company looks forward to remaining at the forefront as the market leader by providing state-of-the-art products to achieve creative innovations and solving customer problems. In the next five to ten years, Origin aspires to establish itself as one of the leading healthcare technology providers in Southeast Asia, and focus on group hospitals and group clinics as its clients. Origin is further working towards becoming the household brand healthcare technology solution provider for HIS in Malaysia and beyond.