Our team recently saw this infographic on LinkedIn, and it got us thinking about EMRs in today’s market, and they seem to have hit a plateau.
In reviewing top EMR offerings each one has the same features and functionality. Nothing sets one apart from the other. As a provider where does this leave you when you know you should be spending your precious time better, in direct patient care or at home! When providers and staff are frustrated or express dissatisfaction, as a practice administrator what are your options?
The biggest mistake when considering an EMR switch is NOT evaluating your business and clinical needs, and what your current EMR may or may not already provide.
Let’s take a deeper look:
Evaluation of current business/clinical needs:
Include your front line teams and patients in the discovery process, they will be your best resource.
- Mapping and assessing current business and clinical workflows can help you flesh out your pain points and areas needing improvement.
- Are your workflows proactive? Are they built for, and as a response to, problems that arise, instead of preventing them from occurring in the first place?
- Is recommended best practice being followed?
- Are your teams effectively trained? High turnover, staffing shortages, poor on-boarding, and hiring practices can lead to workarounds, rework, errors, and overall inefficient use of your EMR.
- Familiarize yourself with specialty-specific best practices and benchmarking, then compare both your clinical and business metrics.
- Does your current EMR give you the reporting you need to assess these metrics?! If it does, are you using them?
- Do your staffing models support your practice?
Evaluation of current EMR:
- Over the years the cost of your EMR can get lost in the daily shuffle of running your practice; expensive add-ons, third-party options, and mandatory upgrades can also drive your costs up. New pricing models can lump expenses and services together to save you money!
- In addition to saving on the overall expense, technology consolidation can help save time and money by reducing IT management, redundancies and streamlining your workflows.
- Over time features and functionality of your EMR can become unused or used incorrectly.
- Loss or lack of training can lead to improper use of the system and workarounds that can negatively impact your patient cycle time and the overall health of your revenue cycle.
- Are you still utilizing LOADS of paper in your practice? Because you are still on paper? Because your teams don’t trust your EMR enough to let the paper go?
- Equipment Needs?
- Do your teams have what they need; printers, tablets, phones, technology/apps to make your job easier…
- Or maybe you have too many apps and different third-party add-ons? Multiple logins and passwords to manage. Is technology support always pointing the finger in the opposite direction?
The biggest hindrance to improving your day-to-day practice life, whether you decide to optimize your current EMR or switch to something new is the fear of change and the project itself.
Optimizing your practice and EMR does not have to be overwhelming! Let Connect Strategic Partners help you connect the dots and enhance your practice and the lives of your patients, give us a call!
