Are you planning to implement an EHR solution at your medical practice? Are you searching for that ‘perfect fit’ that will transform your workflows to yield tremendous benefits? Let’s recall the childhood fairy tale Goldilocks and The Three Bears, where one was too large, another too small, but the perfect was the one ‘just right’! The same is the case with an ideal EHR!
Here is a checklist for you to consider when selecting your EHR:
It should meet the unique needs of your practice
The most crucial point to consider is that a perfect EHR should necessarily meet the unique needs of your specialty and workflows. You are advised to look for specialty-specific templates that can be further customized to your practice’s needs. These templates should also offer the ability to retain the provider’s style, both in content and process.
Provide a flexible appointment scheduling module.
Your EHR Small Practices should recognize the need for appointments to be scheduled, modified, rescheduled and deleted. Your practice may also want more flexibility in order accommodate walk-in patients or virtual ones as well as recalling one patient annually. Who needs their wellness check up reestablished with you on file again after receiving it last time around.
It should be customizable
Your EHR vendor should offer customization to meet your specific workflows. You might want to add drop-down menus, free text messaging, voice recognition features, and much more. You might also want to be able to add and remove sections within a designed picklist to customize the system as per your needs.
It should offer the flexibility of appointment scheduling
Your EHR should accommodate your scheduling needs. It should recognize and incorporate all your appointment-related needs, such as scheduling and rescheduling, modifications, cancellations, etc. You might want added flexibility to accommodate walk-in patients, virtual patients, and follow-up visits.
What are the ehr’s reporting capabilities?
Your EHR Software should allow you to document and report data for value-based government incentive programs. Related to this, the ONC maintains standards for health information technology. Which can help your organization stay compliant with these regulations by certifying their software as being “ONC Health IT Certified.” To be eligible in order take advantage of certain types or levels concerning incentives from our tax dollars spent on healthcare services here’s what an application needs. It must have been designed within a certified specializing entity under HRSA/DoD 8381I specifications. Implemented according those standard rules established since 2009. When passage into law electronic health record implementation began nationwide at any level above Division.
Will the ehr vendor guide you through implementation and training?
Implementing a new EHR Small Practices can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to feel like an impossible task. Ideally your vendor will provide foundational training and ongoing communication with customers. As well customer support that goes beyond the initial 90 day period after going live for practices looking into this option. To help shorten those long days spent learning how everything works many emr vendors offers its proprietary approach. This program provides access not only on their team during these early days when we’re figuring out all of our software idiosyncrasies. Something particularity frustrating in such complicated programs. But also gives guidance from other providers who’ve already gone through what you’re experiencing now so they might share some tips.
Here are a few additional EHR evaluation checklist items worth considering.
- Clinical alerts
- Data analytics
- Electronic prescribing
- Integrated billing
- Patient portals
- Security protocols
- Simplified scheduling
- Speech-to-text capabilities
- Template libraries
Is interoperability a priority?
Is the EHR capable of sharing information with different EHR systems, and is interoperability a priority for the vendor? a nonprofit dedicated to a vendor-neutral platform for health data exchange.
It should foster a positive patient experience
The ultimate objective of an EHR is to deliver optimal patient experience and enhance patient outcomes. Hence, your EHR should provide value-added services without adding a completely separate process:
- Offer telehealth in conjunction with the patient portals
- It should give unlimited access to your records, offering a flexible platform that can adapt to your device of choice
It should facilitate in your administrative tasks
The EHR should integrate well with other administrative workflows within your practice. Without integration, your EHR will be of no use. For instance, if you deliver services promptly but are not reimbursed accurately for these services, your medical practice won’t be able to survive. This is a wicked reality. Filing an insurance claim or even being able to obtain the eligibility and authorization for the patient’s insurance cannot be done if your EHR doesn’t integrate with your billing function. Hence, a perfect EHR Small Practices should guide you through the maze of managerial tasks and ease your administrative burden to streamline your workflows.
It should offer multiple back-ups
One of the significant limitations of storing your medical records digitally is perhaps the fact that computers can crash, hard drives can die, and valuable data can be lost forever. Your EHR Small Practices must be well-designed to foresee any such circumstances and incorporate contingency plans for situations of a natural disaster. Investing in multiple back-ups ensures the safety of critical medical data and patient health information. Therefore, when selecting the EHR for your practice, make sure your vendor has sufficient back-up arrangements for disaster management.
Integration
A successful practice is one who understands the importance of diversification. You can’t just rely on any one thing for stability or growth. A physician’s office should have everything they need from billing systems so patients receive accurate bills each month along with GPs offices. Being able access patient controlled records which includes prescriptions. If applicable all while analyzing data about how effective marketing campaigns were at getting new clients through various channels.
When searching for your new Electronic Health Record system, it’s commanding that you consider how well it interacts and integrates with other systems. If something doesn’t work as expected or if there are any glitches in the seamless integration. When looking into which electronic health record (EHR) program suits one’s needs most effectively ̶ whether they currently use another type already on file like Proforma Health Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Pricing
The EHR software market is a difficult one to navigate, but the final product should be something your organization commits time and money towards. Paying for an already established system or going without? It’s not just about what you get out of it–it’s also important that this purchase doesn’t break the bank. You can’t just pick up any old EHR software off the shelf these days.
Final Thoughts
Choosing the perfect EHR is a crucial decision for your medical practice. It is as important as making the right diagnosis of a patient. There are hundreds and thousands of EHR solutions available in the market. But you need to make sure you opt for the one that meets the distinct characteristics of your practice workflows. CureMD is your best pick for electronic health record (EHR) systems for small practices because it is an inexpensive, easy to use, cloud-based EHR solution that is easy to deploy and effective at what it does.
