Electronic patient records (EPRs) have been shown to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare delivery. While developed countries are ahead in this transition, with nearly all hospital settings relying on EPRs, developing countries are still lagging. Without EPRs, physicians struggle to have a clear medical history of patients; consequently, healthcare quality and efficiency are compromised. This is particularly true for migrants, a subset of the population that could benefit from EPRs as cross-border mobility often entails numerous threats to the safety, integrity, and health.

This presentation will showcase the project “Right and access to health for migrants: Health care trajectories of people on the move through cities in northeastern Mexico and the Texas Valley region,” or “Migrant Health Trajectories” for short. The first intervention of the project is the creation and implementation of an EPR called “Expediente Digital Migrante” (Migrant Digital Record Home | Trayectoria de Salud Migrante). This instrument is designed to document and monitor the physical and mental health of migrants in transit; it comprises clinical history, medical notes, results of physical and clinical examinations, and depression scales. The EPR can be accessed across different countries and by multiple providers. So far, the EPR system has been implemented in 7 migrant shelters across the Mexican states of Nuevo Leon (5), Coahuila (1), and Reynosa (1), all in the Northeast region, and more than 2900 patients have been registered in the system.