You can walk into several medical practices at random and after spending some time in each one, you’ll usually be able to tell the ones that are merely good and which ones are actually great. Of course, hiring the most talented people for your staff and creating a great work environment are crucial for developing an excellent practice.
Moreover, a major aspect of developing a great work environment involves giving your team the proper tools they need to get the job done. A clear example of this is electronic health record software.
If you’ve been getting by with an old-fashioned, paper-based system in your healthcare practice or are using some generic, off-the-shelf application that wasn’t designed for the medical industry, you’re doing your patients and staff a big disservice. Read on to see how EHR software can bring your healthcare practice from good to great.
Fewer Errors
We all make mistakes from time to time, but there is no room for errors in healthcare practices. This is why staffers will take extra steps to verify the data is good. When you implement an EHR software solution at your practice, you will quickly cut down on the number of easily preventable mistakes made by your team.
For example, the billing component will include automatic checking of the data, such as to make sure the staffer selected the correct ICD code number. When staffers can complete their tasks with fewer clicks of the mouse, the result will be improved morale. The software’s included templates speed up data entry even further, and you will see at a glance what details are still missing before you can go onto the next patient.
Faster Prescriptions
Comedians have made a living making jokes about how doctors have poor handwriting, and there is a bit of truth to the stereotype, to be sure. With the electronic prescribing capability in your EHR system, physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners alike can quickly generate an electronic prescription and then transmit it to the patient’s preferred pharmacy, which will already be in the database for faster selection.
You use less paper since you don’t need to give the patient a physical prescription. Patients appreciate using electronic prescriptions because in most cases, the medicine will be available by the time they arrive at the pharmacy from the doctor’s office.
Making Things Easier for Patients
One of the most useful aspects of an EHR software solution is the integrated patient portal. It will make things easier for both your staff and your patients. For example, you can program the system so it will automatically send text messages or emails to patients to remind them of an upcoming appointment. What’s more, you can add a personal touch by recording these reminders in the voice of one of your staffers, to be left on the patient’s voice mail or answering machine.
Patient portals let your patients log in securely from any location via the Internet (which they are usually already used to with other institutions, such as their bank or with online shopping). Then they can check on their latest lab results or send a message to a doctor or nurse. Your staff will be able to respond with a message via the computer instead of having to call and hope to reach the patient instead of voicemail.
Making the switch from an antiquated paper-based system or generic software suite to a specialized electronic health records application will improve your healthcare practice in a variety of ways. From cutting down on staffers’ errors to speeding up the prescription process to giving patients more freedom with a patient portal, you’ll find that EHR software will definitely bring your practice from good to great.
Key Takeaway
- Paper-based systems are too inefficient for modern medical practices to consider using very much longer.
- Switching to electronic health records software will help your staff make fewer errors.
- Easy-to-use EHR software means your team members will spend less time looking for menu options and frequently used commands.
- Prescriptions created and sent electronically via the EHR application speeds up how many patients you can serve and reduces waiting times for patients picking up medication.
