|Electronic Health Records|
Electronic Health Records
Running a clinic, hospital department or medical practice is a serious, time consuming task. For most practices across the United States and Canada, managing a clinic is further complicated by paper records.
In fact, recent studies show that less than half of all practices have electronic health records (sometimes known as electronic medical records) systems in place. It's an odd statistic, simply because of the overall time and labor resources that an electronic health records system can save.
Electronic Health Records Benefits
The key benefit to a turnkey Electronic Health Records (also known as EMR software), particularly a CCHIT-certified EMR system, is simple: it eliminates paper. Shifting paper from one part of a clinic to another is a constant theme for most clinics, and with busy times come large amounts of paper.
As with anything, large amounts of paper can create chaos, usually the result of human error. Paper mix-ups are extremely common in even the most organized professional medical practice. The fact is, when humans are busy, stressed or working hard, the possibility of human error increases. What's more, the necessity for HIPAA compliant healthcare software is more important than ever, with deadlines continually looming for most medical practices.
With Electronic Health Records, paper charts and medical records can be either partly, or fully eliminated. Small practices can save the space their filing cabinets currently fill up. Large practices can re-assign entire rooms for storage of other items, such as medical supplies, or even secondary examination rooms. MSA's electronic health records software has done this for hundreds of practices across the United States, and can do it for your practice as well, even when you are a specialist (our Pediatric EMR product is just one example of this).
Is The Product Complicated?
In a word, no. If you have any experience working with such common productivity tools such as Microsoft Office, you can typically learn to use our Electronic Health Records software within a few hours. If your staff is not used to computers at all, it is important to note that training simply will be necessary.
We have training experience dating back to the early 1990s, when computer systems were not so common. No matter your computer savvy, or that of your staff, part of our job is to ensure that your system is not only installed and implemented, but being used in its most efficient manner.
How Electronic Health Records Work
In most implementations, electronic health records systems immediately create efficiencies, at a low cost. The systems use regular PCs, and no proprietary hardware, meaning the expense of adding a new workstation is relatively negligible.
A common implementation often finds workstations located in each examination room, which enables the physician, with only a click of a mouse, to pull up patient information. This patient information can include a medical history, charts, x-rays and previous conditions. Basically, everything that would normally be stored in a patient folder is available to you, at any workstation with security clearance, at any time of the day.
Obviously, for a small practice, this can mean an extremely efficient practice wherein data is not longer trucked around daily and stacks of folders are virtually eliminated. For larger practices, this can be a godsend for resources.
Staff is no longer constantly moving paper from filing room to examination room, and as a result, expenses can be saved. An office which formerly required 25 personnel might only require 20.
In fact, our clients have seen almost immediate return on investment for our electronic health records systems, simply on labor costs alone!
Electronic Medical Record
Electronic Medical Records