Implementing an Electronic Health Record System - The planning phase
Due to the complexity of the an EHR implementation you may want to seek help
in managing the implementation from a professional with experience in
implementing EHR.
In a
multi provider environment you may want to appoint a champion physician. A
champion physician is someone who is assigned by an organization who is
responsible for planning, system build, testing in both simulated and live
environment, training other physicians, maintaining templates/rules and managing
future updates/customizations. He/she also becomes the main point of contact
with the EHR vendor. When selecting a champion physician it’s important to
select someone who is comfortable with technology, has adequate time available
for training other physicians as well as meet with the vendor on product
improvements. If possible this physician should be compensated and/or benefited
to ensure that they are dedicated to this.
So what do you do with all those all records? At this point you’ll want to plan an exit strategy from the costly paper record. While there are many factors which affect this decision, incl, # of records, # of active patients and legal implications. Whichever way you decide to go you’ll need to keep some of your old records for easy access and you’ll need to convert some charts to electronic immediately. In most cases of a 1-25 provider office with a steady amount of repeat business you’ll want to consider following these steps to convert your patient records.
1) Purge your records for any patient records where you don’t expect to see
the patient in the future, move these records to long term storage.
2)
Purge your records for all highly active patients (whom you expect to see within
the next 3-6 months). These records will be manually entered into your via
manual data entry and scanning solutions. Tag these records in an easily
recognizable manner so you know which records have been converted and which have
not.
3) If you are also converting your financial records incl AR and
insurance information you’ll need to plan on running your old practice
management software alongside your new software to slowly bring over your
balances…
4) Hire an IT person if necessary assist in setting up your
computers. If this service is going to be provided by the vendor it is still
recommended to have a local IT team to assist your IT in the event of an
emergency.
If you expect resistance from one or more doctors and would like to implement the EHR in stages you may want to consider using a hybrid record. Hybrid records allow physicians to continue doing their charts in an electronic format but will often use the electronic super bill or CPOE module to enter in charges. At the end of the visit all the paper from that visit is scanned into the system. Taking this approach will help remove your dependency on paper charts, allow you to use select features from the EHR, such as electronic prescriptions, electronic lab orders, electronic faxing and electronic charge posting.
Once a strategy has been put in place for converting your paper records you’ll want to set a realistic time frame for your go live date. Depending on the size of your office and expected difficulty of the implementation process you’ll need to decide if you will go live towards the end on your training period or if you’ll go live at a later date once your records have been converted to the EHR. You’ll want to meet with the vendor, project managers and IT staff to begin setting your times for installation.
Implement a project management system to track tasks, issues, requests and meetings. Tracking your issues as they arise is crucial to the long term goal of improving your system. By placing these issues into an Excel spreadsheet with an urgency level will enable you to keep on top of all these issues and meet on their status on regular basis.
Learn more about our Electronic Health Record Systems.
What can EHR Software Consultants do for you?
EHR Software Consultants offers private practices nationwide the best Electronic Health Record software solutions. If you're ready to go paperless and take advantage of more profitable, efficient and safer practice then contact us today.
We offer EHR software for all the major medical specialties. Call us today, toll-free at (877) 367-1367 for a specialty specific EHR software demonstration.
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