How Helpful Is EMR For Your Practice?

 An EMR, or electronic medical record, is a medical record for a patient in a digital format that is stored on a computer or in a computer server.  This medical information is accessible via computers on a network, to provide health care and health-related services.

EHRs contain information regarding the past, present, or future physical and mental health of a patient, medical test reports, medical images, financial and demographic information. In addition, the ordering of medical tests, medications, treatments, and clinical guidelines are accessible within the EHR. The data contained in HER can be captured or transmitted securely and in real-time by users at the point of care. The three core functions of an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) are the following:

EMR may be helpful for your practice in many ways:

1. Elimination of Paper

2. Increased Revenues and Faster Accounts Receivable Cycle

3. The Safety of Patients

4. E-Prescription

5. Improved Reimbursements and Reduced Insurance Premiums

Accuracy of certified EMR and certified EHR programs is so trusted that many malpractice insurance companies are now offering discounts to doctors who use full software systems. In addition, practice management software can also greatly improve your reimbursement rates as they will ensure your office claims are compliant with insurance company drug formularies and other policies.

These are just a few reasons why EMR software can save you money-even in times of economic recession!

Tips for Best EMR Implementation

EMR can be of great help to doctors, hospitals as well as patients if implemented properly. We see following important rules that should be followed for best EMR Implementation practices.

1. Train Nursing Staff: According to experts the first and foremost offence related to EMR Implementation is to forgetting to train your nursing staff. EMR is not just only related to physicians. Although physicians are the main owner and decision maker but they are not the only users of the EMR. As far as the usage data is concerned Nurses as 75 percent of user of the chart whereas physicians only 25 percent users of chart. So a successful EMR implementation focuses on how the nurses can assist the physician in the integration of EMR into their clinical workflow.

2. Take EMR Implementation as opportunity to change and improve workflow: At this point it is important to remember that EMR should not be used as magic stick to fix holes and other issues in workflow. According to Steve E. Waldren, MD, director of AAFP Center for Health IT, "Most people think that EMR solves problems, but actually EMR will only amplify problems that already exist in practice."

3. Schedule more training: As EMR is a complicated environment with a lot of regulation, coding and documentation, so there is need of dedicated time for training. There is need of scheduling time outside of office hours for you and your staff to get on EMR and actually going through all tasks that you will perform when it will go live. And this should be scheduled after office hours because if you close office hours then it may cost you overtime or even lost productivity. You should also budget for additional training costs, so that you can get the most from your investment in EMR Implementation.

4. Expect for the stress and effort required over several months: Although EMR implementation is full of features and functions that will bring efficiency to our operations, but you should also keep in mind that adoption of technology is an iterative process so it is impossible to take full advantage of it within first two weeks of your go live. She said that groups will be in learning and adoption phase of transition for proper EMR Implementation to several months, although it looks tiresome but you should be prepared for that.

5. Round on providers and clinical support staff: Just as nurses and clinicians round on patients at hospitals, experts suggests of rounding on everyone in practice to measure their EMR comfort level. "After few months you're go-live you should visit each and every user for even few minutes to observer and identify shortcuts", says Nelson. Or otherwise you can offer tips on how they can use EMR more efficiently and properly. In that way learning is quick and non-threatening.

6. Personalization and recognition of differences among physicians: "Don't try to compel all physicians to do same thing, because incorporating technology into all personal use is not one-size-fits-all". She added more that even different people use simple technologies like email and word processing differently. And EMR implementation provides several ways to accomplish same task, and it might add complexity to training, so you should be sure to offer EMR providers the variety that will fit your practice style the best.