Why Health Care Providers Should Implement Electronic Health Records
The health care industry is quickly changing as technology influences every aspect of the health care experience for both providers and patients. Electronic health records are quickly becoming a standard feature of modern health care organization. Read on to learn why health care providers should take advantage of electronic health records.
Increased Efficiency, Decreased Costs
Many health care organizations find that electronic health records improve medical management through increasing efficiencies and cost savings. To illustrate, sending electronic lab results and electronic prescriptions, referred to as e-prescribing, saves a lot of time. In addition to this, electronic processes drastically reduce costs through reducing the need for paper and labor-intensive tasks. For instance, electronic health records reduce data entry, transcription, storage and administration costs for maintaining health records.
Electronic health records also improve the efficiency of revenue cycles and the accuracy of reimbursement coding, which will result in fewer medical errors and ultimately better patient care and disease management. Other health care organizations find that they experience better medical practice management through the scheduling functions available in these programs. The scheduling systems will directly link appointments with physician notes, insurance codes and managed claims.
Increased Patient Care
Electronic health records directly increase the quality of patient care through providing universal access to standardized and centralized patient information. This means that providers can immediately access accurate information to make an informed decision with real-time data. This is especially important because health care wait times are notoriously long and patients are often forced to wait days or even weeks before a vital decision can be made.
Health care administrators will be able to generate customized reports that analyze collective health records. They can extract detailed reports on specific services for diseases or illnesses in order to identify quality improvement opportunities. For example, if a health care administrator notices unusually long wait times for radiology lab results, they may look into the matter and find there is a staffing or technology shortage that can be quickly fixed.
Increased Patient Access
Electronic health records will improve high-quality care because providers can give patients comprehensively accurate information about their medical condition. That is, health care providers can provide detailed follow-up information, self-care instructions and directions for additional resources. Consequently, patients can access their information online, which will empower them to learn more and make better health related decisions.
Electronic health record systems can be integrated with online health care portals for patients to access their health care data. They can also engage their health care providers through emailing questions, scheduling appointments and even ordering medications online. Being able to directly communicate with a health care provider through email can actually be more effective than making a phone call, navigating complex phone options and waiting to talk to a customer service rep.
Improved Diagnostics
Electronic health records with EMR data conversion can directly aid in diagnosis because providers will have complete access to all of the patient’s health information. Even better, electronic health record systems have automatic functions that provide valuable health-related information. To illustrate, the software will store a list of the patient’s allergies or medications, which it will automatically compare new prescriptions against. If there are any potential conflicts, the electronic health record program will alert the health care provider.
Advanced electronic health record programs which are integrated with health information systems may also automatically alert health care providers when their patients fail to see a scheduled specialist or show up for a follow-up lab test. Thus, these software systems are embedded with quality and safety controls that prevent human errors.
In the end, electronic health records mean that health care providers can give the best possible care during the moment of care. They also improve the safety, quality and efficiency of patient care.
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