Benefits of EMR/EHR
An EMR system provides two important benefits for physician practices of all sizes: improved administrative efficiency, which increases revenue, and support for high-quality patient care.
Improving Administrative Efficiency
As any practice already knows managing paper medical records is a time-consuming, labor-intensive task. To ensure effective medical record management requires a great deal of clerical and administrative effort. Listed below are some of the benefits practices can expect from an EMR.
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Fewer chart pulls. With an EMR, every networked workstation in the practice becomes the chart rack. The rack — and all its records — are accessible to any authorized user, from any workstation. New data goes into the chart electronically, without a staff person having to find a physical file, pull it, and re-file it after the patient encounter.
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Fewer lost charts. Every time a paper chart gets pulled, there is the chance it will be misplaced or filed incorrectly. This is a common source of frustration, even in the most efficient paper-based practices. Because an EMR has no physical files, the files can’t get lost. Plus, EMR users do not
have the ability to change where individual patient files are stored on the server, so they can’t be lost electronically.
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Less time spent filing. An EMR can automatically incorporate data into a patient’s chart from outside the local network, without staff members manually entering it. By creating interfaces to external sources — such as laboratories and hospitals — an EMR keeps patient records current
without the time-consuming filing that a paper-based system requires.
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Universal chart access. Paper charts can only be in one place at one time. But every record in an EMR is available from any workstation, whether the workstation is in the office, at a local hospital, or at a physician’s home. Multiple people can view the same patient’s chart simultaneously, so the daily work of the practice — whether it’s a physician updating a progress note or the front desk updating an immunization record — does not have to slow down because someone else has the chart.
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Improved external communication. With instant access to the chart from any workstation, administrative staff can handle a wider range of incoming calls, reducing the need to take a message, find the chart and return the call.
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Fewer call-backs from pharmacies. If the EMR incorporates a prescription writer function it ensures the legibility of every prescription.
Supporting High-Quality Patient Care
An efficiently managed office provides the opportunity for physicians to increase efficiency thereby providing high-quality patient care.
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Higher quality documentation. Adopting an EMR in your practice helps standardize chart quality and minimize problems that can occur as a result of illegible handwriting, inconsistencies in documentation and other common human errors.
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More efficient chart signing. Paper-based medical records require physicians to have physical access to a chart in order to sign it. An EMR changes this dynamic. Its universal electronic access enables physicians to sign all unsigned components — including progress notes or lab results — electronically from any workstation, whether in the office or at a physician’s home. That means physicians can review charts quickly and efficiently, at a time and location that is most convenient for them. Some EMR systems also provide administrators with reports on all unsigned notes, which is an excellent way to improve quality across the practice. Many EMR systems also give clinicians tools that directly affect the quality of patient care and customer service. None of these is available with paper-based systems.
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Built-in protocols and reminders.
Unlike a conventional medical record, an EMR can provide clinicians with important patient information at the time of documentation. For example, diagnosis-specific templates can help remind physicians about special protocols and tests related to the patient’s condition. An EMR can also incorporate age-, sex- and disease specific health maintenance reminders that pop up each time a patient chart is accessed. The reminder feature also makes it easy for practices to
proactively improve routine health maintenance metrics by querying the EMR database for all patients with overdue items and then sending reminder letters.
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Improved medication management. Effectively managing patient medications can improve any patients’ quality of care. With the prescription-writing functionality of Practice Partner Patient records, for example, every time a prescription is written, the EMR system automatically initiates drug-to-drug and drug-toallergy interaction checks, medication list updates, and automatic documentation of the prescription in the progress note and checks of selected drugs against the patient’s formulary. All of these checks reduce the risk of improper prescriptions and related issues that can compromise quality of care. Many EMR systems also provide query features that can be very helpful for practice-wide medication management. For example, in the event of a drug recall, the practice can quickly determine which patients are taking the medication and
proceed with notification. Although the most important aspects of care occur during patients’ interactions with clinicians, there is another component of the total experience that can be improved with the adoption of an EMR: customer service.
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Patient communication. Just as an EMR minimizes the need for administrative staff to put patients on hold or perform call-backs (by providing chart access from any workstation), it offers the same opportunity to clinicians, increasing the efficiency with which patient calls can be handled. Instant chart access is also essential for establishing and ensuring high-quality telephone-based triage.
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Patient education and involvement. Many practices that implement an EMR find that it also serves as a helpful tool for engaging patients more actively in their own care. For example, patients participating in programs to reduce weight loss, blood pressure or cholesterol respond well to graphical representations of progress, which are easy to create using an EMR because the data is already entered in the system. EMR systems also make it easy to print appropriate patient education materials directly at the point of care. Alternatively, you can deliver these files electronically — which gives patients access to an even wider range of materials than the practice could afford to print.
The precedding information was provided by McKesson Corporation. Mckesson is the nation's oldest and largest health care services company.
If you have additional questions about EMR/EHR please contact a Physicians Practice Solutions consultant.
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