A recent Jackson Healthcare report on physician trends found that 85% of providers have adopted electronic health records (EHR) systems. Also worth noting is that 61% of physicians reported their EHR’s overhead costs have increased due to ACA requirements. At the same time, provider satisfaction with their EHR systems has been declining. With the average physician seeing 22 patients per day, an EHR can make or break a practice's efficiency. It is likely 2016 will see many physicians replace underperforming EHRs in an effort to better manage regulation compliance and revenue cycles. Specific Reasons to Replace Your EHR in 2016 1. Your Staff Juggles Multiple Systems Collecting data should not be the cause of workflow inefficiency. When your staff …show more content…
Your EHR Doesn't Fit Your Specialty Out of the box solutions that lack customization options leave specialty practices desiring for more. When the system cannot be customized for your specialty, the result is documentation that take a considerable amount of time; time that eats into treating patients and earning revenue. An EHR solution that comes with customizable templates will allow your practice to grow and have the functionality that’s tailored to your specific workflow. 3. Your System Suffers from Chronic Technical Problems IT problems are not only a hassle, they can seriously affect your practice’s productivity and patient satisfaction. EHR hardware and software problems force staff to work longer hours to play catch-up. 4. It’s Lacking Features You Need Features like patient portals, iPad apps and automated patient reminders are just “nice extras,” these features can be a huge benefit to your workflow. For instance, automated reminders can save significant staff time and reduce no-shows. Patient portals allow patients to access their lab results without your staff having to spend time playing phone tag. Every practice should be able to leverage these …show more content…
To do this, providers are encouraged to visit the ONC website and match the meaningful use criteria listed to an EHR’s existing functionality to determine if the system should be adopted. Don’t fall for what a vendor proposes their system will be able to do in the future, understand exactly what is does NOW. Cost Replacing an EHR system will come with a hefty price tag. Research suggests initial EHR costs average roughly $44,000 for each full-time provider. On top of this is an additional $8,500 price tag for annual operating costs. As with any other long term investment, providers should select a replacement system while considering the return on their investment. [Frank, this may be a place to hyperlink to the recent post I wrote about practices saving money with EHR] Alternative Payment Models The healthcare industry has already begun the transition from a fee-for-service model to a pay-for-service model. This migration will continue as efforts are made to decrease the cost of care while improving patient
The federal government has taken a stance to standardized care by creating incentive programs that are mandated under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) of 2009. This act encourages healthcare providers and healthcare institutions to adopt Meaningful use in order to receive incentives from Medicare and Medicaid. Meaningful use is the adoption of a certified health record system that acquires or obtains specified objectives about a patient. The objectives or measures are considered gold standard practices with the EHR system. Examples of the measures include data entry of vital signs, demographics, allergies, entering medical orders, providing patients with electronic copies of their records, and many more pertinent information regarding the patient (Friedman et al, 2013, p.1560).
Thus, reducing administrative work gives an opportunity to clinicians to spend more time with their patients. Through health informatics, some medical procedures can be automated, saving money for the health care budget. Research by Blumenthal and Tavenner (2010) states that, “The widespread use of electronic health records (EHRs) in the United States is inevitable. EHRs will improve caregivers' decisions and patients' outcomes. Once patients experience the benefits of this technology, they will demand nothing less from their providers.
Meaningful Use and the EHR Many new technologies are being used in health organizations across the nation, which are being utilized to help improve the quality of health care. Electronic Health Records (EHRs) play a critical role in improving access, quality and efficiency of healthcare ("Electronic health records," 2014). In order to assist in expanding the use of EHR’s, in 2011 the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), instituted an EHR incentive program called the Meaningful Use Program. This program was instituted to encourage and expand the use of the HER, by providing health professionals and health organizations yearly incentive payments when they demonstrate meaningful use of the EHR ("Medicare and Medicaid," 2014).
...th first-year EHR adoption, loss of physician productivity appeared to be the largest component, estimated at $101,250.
To ease the adoption of EHRs, in addition to receiving incentive payments, CMS has established criteria for Meaningful Use in stages. Stage 1 is the easiest to obtain and stage 3 will be the most difficult.
Meaningful Use (MU) is defined as a healthcare provider’s usage of certified EHR technology in a way that can be measured largely in quality and in quantity. By establishing meaningful use using an Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) certified EHR program; healthcare providers can collect stimulus money, as arranged through the HITECH act of 2009. MU is designed to improve healthcare quality, efficiency, safety, and help to reduce health disparities. Also this helps to maintain privacy and security of patient healthcare information. (EHR Incentives & Certification, 2014)
Chun-Ju Hsiao, P. a. (2014, January 17). Use and Characteristics of Electronic Health Record Systems Among Office-based Physician Practices: United States, 2001–2013. Retrieved April 24, 2014, from CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db143.htm
The adoption of the electronic health record (EHR) is a clever program and promising to the health care delivery system, which is beneficial to health care providers, hospitals, and consumers/patients. Subsequently, the federal government offers an EHR incentive program or popularly known as meaningful use in health care to accelerate the implementation. One of the major components of the meaningful use standards is interoperability of the system wherein exchanges and use of information can be utilized to improve the quality of care. Additionally, EHR increases the efficiency of reporting, speeds up the report retrieval to prevent order redundancy, and improves decision making through immediate results and information availability. On the other hand, patient still questions one aspect of the EHR and health modernization regarding personal information privacy and security. Consequentially, a vast number of patients fear of sharing their important information due to the unmanageable risks regarding privacy and security breaches.
Medical professionals have a better idea of what the system should have or be able to accomplish to allow the end-user to achieve a seamless workflow along with efficient and effective patient care.
These issues manifest themselves in two ways. First, the criteria set out for Stage 1 Meaningful Use overlooked EHR vendors' lack of incentives or requirements to design their EHR systems in such a way that makes them able to easily transfer patient data to other providers ...
Electronic Health Records are essentially a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. However that is just the simple answer of what an EHR is. The truth of the matter is that EHRs are that and so much more. EHRs are a comprehensive digital file of all of a patient’s health information that can be accessed anytime and anywhere; essentially providing real-time access to records by all relevant personnel. These records could contain for example your contact information, allergies, insurance information, medical history, and immunization records among other things. Having this information in this format will help medical personnel by reducing the chances of errors being made, reducing the chances of having duplicate tests performed, and could improve your overall quality of care tremendously. Also by having this information all medical professionals could have all of the current information about the conditions, treatments, tests, and prescriptions you as a patient may have. This in turn could improve the overall workflow of the medical facility by allowing personnel to save time and concentrate on other matters instead of spending time chasing down records and files and updat...
The process of implementing an EHR occurs over a number of years. An electronic record of health-related information on individuals conforming to interoperability standards can be created, managed and consulted with the authorized health professionals (Wager et al., 2009). This information technology system electronically gathers and stores patient data, and supplies that information as needed to the healthcare professionals, as well as a caregiver can also access, edit or input new information; this system functions as a decision support tool to the health professionals. Every healthcare organization is increasingly aware of the importance of adopting EHR to improve the patient satisfaction, safety, and lower the medical costs. Studies have implied that, healthcare professionals who practice clinical features through EHR were far more likely to provide better preventive care than were healthcare professionals who did not.
One of the many purposes of EHR is to connect doctors to their patients with the information contained in the patient profile. The data, if concise and makes sense, will assist the health care provider, primarily doctors, in giving quality care to the patient (Sinsky, 2014). It adds value for the patient because it minimizes paper work and repetition of information. Also, in the case of an emergency the patient’s information is readily accessible and available to the treating health care workers. This can save much needed time in life-threatening medical situations. Unnecessary, or duplication of treatments, or medications, can be avoided
Maura, it is interesting that you mentioned how EMR/EHRs have evolved over the past few years and how organizations are now seeing the shortcoming of the applications and the vendors who are not able to provide the new functionality needed in the healthcare industry. Some vendors have blamed Meaningful Use and its requirements for limiting their ability to expand their product capabilities to provide interoperability (Sullivan, 2016). By increasing the adoption of EHRs, which were not fully developed to provide the interoperability needed to achieve the goals of the HITECH Act, vendors had to commit resources to the sale and implementation of new client systems, rather than devoting those resources to product development.
Outside contractors and vendors might be needed since EHR is a highly technical area and their expertise would be of great help. But these vendors would be an extra cost to the