Points Worth Considering While Choosing An EHR Solution

Should healthcare providers watch out for anything while choosing their Electronic Health Records solutions for their facility? Most would say – Yes, they do. 

Obviously, the quality and the interoperability of the EHR need to be given the first priority. But, a recent research indicates that a few other factors such as the ability of the solution to be customized also need to be checked to the same degree. While using an Electronic Health Records in an emergency facility, the hospital management has to ensure that it is highly productive and be capable of being adapted to the practice method and workflow. Only then can it be useful in long run.

As of now, there are several EHR solutions in the market. Certainly, the abundance of them can make the customers quite confused as to which one could best suit their requirements. This is the point when one needs to be decisive about choosing an Electronic Health Records system.

Choose an EHR System that Meets the Requirements of the Facility

When you are supposed to choose an Electronic Health Records solution for your practice, you need to have a clear idea about the number of employees who are working for you or will be working for you in near future. You need to make sure that the EHR system that you purchase can be used by all the staff. Many of the health record systems restrict the number of users.

Number of Patients

A standard EHR system has limits on the number of entries that can be added to the system per day, per week or per month. If your practice is a large scale one or medium one, the number of patients visiting you will be huge. Obviously, you need to ensure that the EHR system you own has the capacity to add entries of all the visiting patients.

System UI (User Interface)

The user interface of the Electronic Health Recording system you use in your facility matters a lot as well. You need to make sure that each of your staff is capable of operating the EHR system you are going to install at your facility. If they require some training, train them well so that they do not commit any fatal errors while using the system.

These are some basic points that need to be considered before picking an EHR solution. Make sure that you examine a few EHR systems before zeroing in on one. This will help you find out the best one from the crowd.

All About Electronic Health Records

A collection of medical history of a patient for a period in an institution is known as medical records. Due to advancements in technology, it is now possible to save these records in an electronic media, which is termed as Electronic Health Records or EHR. These electronic records include all relevant information to the patient’s health such as the past medical conditions, demographics, medications, vital signs, immunizations, health issues, progress reports, radiology, and laboratory tests along with relevant information.

Electronic Health Records, or otherwise known as EHR, can be shared among other medical institutions with the help of EHR software and a secure network. The main aim of these electronic reorders is to make information accessible and streamlined to make things easier and more organized. Some of the other activities related to care such as evidence-based decision support, quality management, and outcomes reporting. Electronic recorders make sure that the interconnection among doctors, clinicians, and nurses including all the other workers at the health care institution are just perfect.

Electronic Health Records makes things easy in a medical institution in many ways. One of the most important things noticed is the reduction in the number of humanly errors. Since all the information is available in one place, which makes it very easy while retrieving them, the occurrence of mistake is greatly reduced.

Computerized Physician Order Entry is one of the most important features added to the EHR software, which has a list of all the doctors who are qualified in prescribing drugs and meds for the patient. Eventually, this would complement in saving plenty of money, which also reduces the risk of the health of the patient. This also reduces the wait time for a particular medication or treatment, since the processing speed is increased with the help of EHR system.

Even though Electronic Health Records are advantageous to a medical institution, there are certain disadvantages to it as well. The cost to initially set up the system is very costly and it takes time for all the staff including the doctor to be acquainted with the new system. As the entire staff is involved in the process, right from the doctor to the receptionist, it is needed to train them to adapt to the new system.

Initially you may have to put in great efforts, which might be difficult and seem impossible. However, this will do well in the end to both the patient and the staff.

Reasons To Implement Electronic Health Record Services

When the electronic records of a patient is available to more than one doctor, they will be able to take better health decisions. As a patient is transferred from the primary care doctor to a specialist and back to the primary care, too often the doctors may not get the chance to communicate or send the patient’s medical records to each touch point along the way. 

When these doctors share the medical records electronically, a new doctor only needs to ask for the name of the patient, birth date and possibly some other piece of identifying information to get access to the complete health record of the patient. The treatment and diagnosis decisions might be changed, based on the information that is found in the patient database, which is far more complete than what a patient, or any staff might have written down on sheets of paper. 

As the electronic health records make information easy to access, the need for a patient to repeat expensive and uncomfortable tests are very much minimized. This will help not only to save time, but makes it very much easier for the patient by reducing the costs. Another advantage of keeping electronic health records is that this data will not be lost very easily. Paper files can be easily lost, whereas the electronic health records will always be accessible.

EHRs allows to have better standardization throughout the healthcare system when it comes to record keeping, as it offers a uniform way of filling out information that makes it easier for the doctors and nurses to locate the information that they need for the patient. Putting the health records to an electronic format ensures accuracy when the time to bill the patient for the services comes. The importance of the electronic health records become magnified when someone is ill or injured.

When a person moves out of the country, their electronic health record will be able to move with them. In addition, if a doctor moves or retires, the patients no longer need to worry about tracking down the records as long as the records are kept electronically. 

The main disadvantage of electronic patient records is the need of an electronic health records specialist to keep tract of these records. Without the help of an electronic health records specialist, it will be difficult to keep track of these records.

Many of the hospitals now have at least one electronic health records specialist post. If you wish to know more on electronic health records and electronic health records specialist jobs, you can seek help from a professional in the field.