It is well known that Electronic Health Records (EHR) arose out of the need for a more portable and integrable alternative to paper-based clinical documentation. While it is a no-brainer for enterprise healthcare organizations to opt for EHR, a fast-increasing number of small practices are also catching up to this trend.
EHRs are not just limited to collecting and storing data related to patient diagnostics, radiology, or prescriptions. It goes beyond this definition and is not just concerned with providing a holistic view of the disease's treatment but with ensuring continued health for the patient. In short, any EHR solution worth its salt would keep the patient as its focus of concern.
When choosing EHR systems, small practices tend to focus on comparatively more drill-down elements than their hospital-backed counterparts. Let us first figure out what private or solo practices consider when comparing and deciding among different EHR solutions.
How do Small Practices Choose an EHR?
Small practices are always on the lookout for technological improvements that can help expedite their diagnostic and administrative workflows as well as provide options for remote care delivery and that is where EHR systems factor in. You can click on the below image for a more detailed understanding of the same.
Additionally, the financial overhead of integrating an EHR should be manageable so as to run the small-scale setup without a hitch. Here are some things that private practices could consider when looking for an EHR solution:
Low Cost of Ownership: Small practices need to be extra careful when adopting new technologies as their licenses can be expensive for a grassroots setup. Based on the economies of scale the cost of ownership can easily exceed business revenue and so, finding the most cost-friendly yet effective EHR solution requires in-depth market analysis.
Interoperability: The EHR system should be easily integrable with existing platforms used by the clinic or medical practice. There should be a seamless exchange of data across all integrated platforms and the EHR for data uniformity for faster patient outcomes and resolutions.
Customizability for Specializations: Many small practices are often set up in the first place to facilitate more specialized treatments such as orthopedics, palliative care, behavioral therapy, physiotherapy, and so on. The EHR meant for the respective practice must be retrofitted for serving all the diagnostic workflows of that particular practice's specialization.
Minimal Know-How: Other than the clinicians themselves, the administrative staff at small practices tend to be equipped with mid-level skills and expertise. Accordingly, the EHR system with the easiest learning curve should be selected for a smoother adoption by the administrative or clerical team.
5 Reasons Why Private Practices Opt for EHR
Independent medical practices functioning in smaller setups than their enterprise counterparts can reap a number of benefits from EHR integration. Firstly, they have plenty of scope for vertical integration with an enhancement of quality in care delivery.
An ONC Health IT report revealed that out of all EHR adoption in specialty healthcare setups such as independent or solo practices, only 23% adopted certified EHR systems. There needs to be increased adoption of EHR systems that have received the appropriate certification from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) for ensuring the most ideal outcomes.
Image: An EHR Dashboard
Source: https://www.practicefusion.com/
Well-planned investment in certified EHR systems unlocks some of the following benefits for independent practices:
1) Enhanced Patient Engagement
EHR systems present several opportunities for developing deeper relationships with patients. They enable independent practices to take complete charge of their patients' diagnostic outcomes and also provide continued wellness advice beyond the treatment of their disease through patient-facing EHR mobile app modules. Moreover, if the usability of EHR systems is calibrated well enough, it can lead to more positive treatment outcomes and repeat business.
Doctors and nurses receive access to the patient's entire diagnostic history with comprehensive representations in the form of graphs and pie charts. Using clustering analysis, patient health trend data spread over long durations can be inferred so that clinicians can observe precise data points to implement improvements in long-term patient engagement.
2) Efficient Data Management
Ensuring the quality of data in EHR systems translates almost directly to high-quality care delivery. Healthcare data management involves the collection, storage, and analysis of patient data and the right EHR integrations with data management platforms must be implemented. The following are the types of data that exist in healthcare databases:
- Demographic information which is the name, age, contact information, and gender of the patient
- Medical history and family history of disease including all previous doctor visits and radiology charts
- Administrative information with respect to billing, scheduling, insurance claims, and Medicare health and codes for governance
All these categories of patient data must be clean, well-enriched as well as compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Certified EHR systems come with these capabilities integrated and help small practices bypass the need to employ data stewards commanding high salaries.
3) Steady ROI with Higher Capacity
Small practices can leverage EHR systems to expand the patient base which can in turn ensure greater opportunities for steady ROI. As certified EHR systems help clinicians to facilitate better supply utilization, boosted clinical outcomes, improving both care quality and service efficiency, small practices can expand their bottom lines.
The insights that arise out of enriched data around the diagnostic workflow help clinics improve upon their existing methods and care delivery. Several pioneering EHR solutions today come with dashboards that help comprehensively define multiple phases of implementation and value addition where possible.
While EHR provides the capability to gain more granular insights into patient diagnostics and medical history data, it also allows for greater capacity in terms of being able to handle several patient records at the same time. Small practices have the potential to expand and scale up while handling higher volumes of patient data without compromising on the quality of patient engagement.
4) Streamlined Workflow
EHR systems provide all of the patient's clinical and diagnostic data in one place, saving clinicians plenty of time spent searching for this data from different sources. A unified repository that brings together disparate platforms and subsystems of a clinical setup to one place is something that EHR solutions can only facilitate.
These systems also prevent information overload on clinicians of small practices when there is an unexpected onslaught of several appointments during certain high-load periods. Keeping these hurdles at bay frees clinicians to focus on delivering quality patient care at all points in the clinical workflow.
An important feature of EHR is the ease with which clinicians can develop cover sheets containing critical information about the patient's history and course of treatment. With this information easily sharable across an EHR, clinicians involved with patient handovers can leverage this information for smooth care transitions and patient handoffs.
5) Increased Information Security
Small practices that aim to improve patient information security have the option to leverage the capability of EHR software to perform audits. Administrators can quickly identify and weed out irregularities in terms of security breaches as well as block attempts to gain unauthorized access to patient records. Certified EHR systems come with integrated practice management modules with access control provisions.
Independent practice setups that rely on paper-based patient documentation run the risk of easy access to tons of medical records. For small practices, the breach of even a single patient's data could bring an end to their business. These breaches are prevented by EHR systems by coding the information as per regulatory standards.
ALSO READ: Breaking the Misconceptions About an EHR System
Small Practice Efficiency Increases With Certified EHR Solutions
While small practices have the option to integrate off-the-shelf EHR software for effective patient care delivery, the better alternative is always to go for custom-developed solutions. An EHR built specifically to suit a small medical practice can help in realizing specific outcomes to boost efficiency, quality of care delivery, and ultimately business revenue. If you are seeking custom EHR solutions for your small business, you can book a free consultation with us today.
