The Ultimate Guide To Advancing The Set-Up Of EMR

Getting Ready For Electronic Medical Record Implementation

In the medical community, implementing an electronic medical record (EHR), or electronic health record (EHR) system, has become a common practice.

The benefit of an EHR implementation is that it replaces paperwork and filing cabinets with digital accounts. This enables physicians and staff to access health records, prescription records, and diagnostic reports at the click of a mouse.

Whether your practice uses EHR systems or comes straight from paper medical records, we’re here to help. Use this guide to understand the following:

• The benefits of functioning with a fully integrated EHR like Athenaone or ModMed
• How to accelerate the EHR setup
• And finally–how to integrate the EHR system seamlessly into your practice.

Benefits of a Fully Implemented EHR System Feeling overwhelmed by the thought of implementing a new EHR?

We don’t blame you. Learning and implementing a whole new system into your practice is a big step. However, we’d like to reassure you that you have made the right decision for your practice. To prove it to you, we’ve provided excellent benefits that your new EHR will bring to your practice:

Greater Efficiency: The implementation of EHRs often leads to improved practice management. Easy access to records and statements enables your staff to obtain the information they need when they need it, saving you time and money. Friendly User Experience: Since the beginning of time, paper records have been used to document a wide range of information, from patient records to billing statements and beyond. Not only does paper take up space, but it’s also overwhelming and not very user-friendly. EHRs create a one-stop shop for all of your records, making them much easier to maneuver and overall creating a better user experience for your physicians and staff.

Higher Quality Documentation: Paper records don’t follow the patient. In other words, if you have a new patient or need to refer a current patient to a different practice, your paper records must be physically transferred with the patient. With EHRs, everything is in one place and can be accessed from several locations quickly. Additionally, the totality of documentation allows for more legible and reliable documents.

Improved Connectivity Between Staff: Having a single hub for all records enables a more cohesive system, resulting in increased connectivity within the practice. Your new EHR will make it easier for your physicians to communicate information from one location to another. Not only that, but electronic medical records also facilitate better communication with insurance and billing companies too. Everyone wins!

Improved Patient Care: Last but certainly not least–the most important benefit of implementing an EHR system into your practice. Quicker access to patient records and documents enables physicians to spend more time with patients and less time managing paperwork. On a cautionary note, your physicians need to spend more time entering notes into their EHR than they previously did, which may result in less face time with patients. We hope that after learning more about the benefits of your EHRs, you will feel more confident about your decision to implement it. Next, let’s discuss how to accelerate your setup!

Bonus: Pairing your new EHR with a virtual scribe to transcribe your notes will have your physicians spending even more time with their patients–but we’ll get to that later!

Accelerating the Set-Up Process

The set-up process will take a different amount of time for each practice, depending on the time and resources available to each specific clinic. We would be lying if we said that setting up an EHR for your practice is quick and easy. Setting up your EHR system correctly requires a carefully curated plan. To save you time in the future, it is essential to set up your EHR correctly the first time. Below is the step-by-step guide to accelerate your EHR set-up:

CREATING YOUR ROADMAP: You would never expect to travel from North Carolina to California without a roadmap–right? (At least not successfully.)

The same principle applies to setting up your EHR, so we’ve created a roadmap to guide you through the process. To accelerate the setup of your EH, it’s essential to establish goals for before, during, and after the implementation. In other words, outline all the tasks that need to be done and in what order they should be completed. We suggest allowing about three months from the start of your set-up to when you go live with your new system.

We have laid out a roadmap for you to follow and implement your new system successfully:

Three Months Prior to Launch

Install the hardware in the rooms and purchase necessary wireless equipment, such as tablets or laptops. This is the easy part. Install all of your actual physical equipment into your rooms. Ensure the functionality of your network and devices. In other words, ensure that all your computers, tablets, laptops, and other devices can communicate appropriately with each other. Install your scanning and faxing devices. This applies to practitioners transitioning from paper records. If you’re switching from a different EHR system, this step won’t be necessary. Train your staff. This is huge. Ensuring that you and your staff are familiar with the software and can navigate the workflow effectively is crucial to a functioning system. After all, the system is only as effective as the people who use it!

Two Months Prior to Launch

Allocate your resources. Once everyone in your practice is trained on the system, it’s time to assign duties. Implementing EHR is a one-person job. Ensure that specific tasks are assigned to designated staff members and that everyone is aware of their respective roles. Ensure the functionality of your hardware and software. It’s crunch time now. Verify that all your hardware is communicating properly and ensure the software is functioning as intended.

Configure your system. We consider this one of the most crucial steps in the process, as it encompasses numerous aspects. Configuring your system means programming in different locations and users, designing workflows, and, if applicable, converting your old system to your new one. As we mentioned before, this is an involved process, so make sure you allow a good chunk of time to complete it.

Test your system. The trick to hitting the ground running with your EHR is to make sure everything works before it gets launched.

Continue to train staff. The initial training session may not be sufficient to gain a full understanding of your EHR. While some EHR skills apply to all users, different user groups, such as receptionists, record staff, medical assistants, and physicians, benefit from personalized training. Don’t underestimate the power of knowledge here. An up-to-date staff will make your implementation smoother and faster. Implement helpful services. Hiring a medical transcription company to transcribe your words to paper is a great way to save even more time on a day-to-day basis. And hiring a medical transcription company who can actually help you with your EHR integration is even better! We’ll touch more on this later in our “Hiring a Medical Transcription Company” section.

Going Live

Congratulations–you’ve just installed your new electronic medical record system! Now it’s time to consider what assistance you might need going forward with your new system. We’re willing to bet that you’ve installed this new system with the hopes that it will bring time back to your physicians and their patients. While the idea of an EHR is to do just that–the reality is a little different.

In a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, for every hour a physician spends with their patients, they’re spending nearly 2 additional hours updating information and fact-checking their EHRs. With so many extra hours spent doing tasks that could otherwise be outsourced, your physicians will likely experience unnecessary stress that often leads to physician burnout.

Using an EHR Integration Services Company Better Integration:

Implementing a new EHR system into your practice is a great first step towards a higher functioning practice. However, simply installing and using your EHR is not enough. As an already busy practice, your physicians don’t have the time to spend hours inputting data and updating records. That’s where we come in.

Having worked with several EHR systems, we’re able to integrate our medical transcription services and document management seamlessly into your system. Whether you decide to upload our reports into the EHR or prefer that we enter the data into the appropriate fields within the EHR, we can easily work within your existing electronic health records system. In addition to all of the set-up you just went through to get your EHR system up and running, you still need to be sure that throughout the entire use of your EHR, you’re remaining HIPAA compliant (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). With the rules changing all the time, it can be hard to be sure that everything your practice is doing complies with the act.

DataMatrix Medical always stays up-to-date on the latest guidelines and ensures complete compliance. Human Touch: Software and AI is great! But only for tasks that lie “inside the box.” EHR systems require physicians to enter data or scan information into complex algorithms, which often takes up extra time. A medical BPO company adds a human touch to your services. Our transcriptionists are trained to use the templates that you already use in your EHR. This reduces the amount of dictation and medical transcription costs, and it also reduces point-and-click work for your physicians. Ultimately, your physicians don’t have the time to spend hours editing and monitoring the information stored in your EHR system. Allow your physicians to spend more time caring for their patients and let us handle the laborious tasks.