STORIES & SOLUTIONS FOR THE MODERN BUSINESS USER

Someone much more intelligent than me once said that too much of a good thing may be a bad thing. Or could be a bad thing. Or something like that. You get the idea.

What I hear often when visiting physicians who are using the problem list in an electronic health record (EHR) is “it doesn’t give me any information.” When I ask why, is it empty? They say, “No, there are a hundred things on it. It’s filled with lots of stuff.” The problem is that you really don’t have an accurate snapshot of a patient when people are just throwing problems on the problem list.

Physicians have to start de-duplicating and doing work on the problem list because it’s not accurate, tight, up-to-date and reflective of the patient’s acuity and status today. And so, they get uninvolved with the problem list and the issues get increasingly worse.

Last week we examined the five areas leakage occurs between EHR and ERP. As you consider if ERP-EHR integration is worth doing, let’s evaluate it under these conditions:

In part one of this two-part series we'll look at the five silent areas of revenue leakage and why they occur. In next week's post we'll share insight on what to do about them.

The quote “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” originally from Leonardo da Vinci and the headline of one of Apple’s first marketing brochures in 1977, underscores the design philosophy that led to much of Apple’s success. Unfortunately, modern electronic health record (EHR) documentation workflows are far from simple. Regulatory, legal, reporting, payor, and other documentation requirements have shifted the focus of clinical workflows from patient care to data entry. These requirements result in suboptimal Frankenstein-like EHRs and uncertainty about how to make things better.

Just over a decade ago, doctors in the U.S. updated patient files by hand and stored them in color-coded files. Thankfully, technology enhancements have made way for more effective and accurate alternatives. EHR adoption grew to nearly 96 percent, mainly due to government EHR incentive programs.

Going to the hospital is not like going to the supermarket, but it should be. Follow along:

Upgrading an EHR is a necessary and important process that helps to ensure the long-term success of your IT investment.  Upgrades can be required by your vendor for good standing or for support purposes, but your organization can also use an upgrade to increase productivity, functionality, usability, and end user satisfaction.

As any physician using Epic knows, the need to maintain an accurate and updated provider database is incredibly important, but it’s laborious and hard to manage with manual methods. Data accuracy and quality is a top challenge compounded by multiple sources of the truth and areas for entry into the organization’s database.

By 2018, there will be over 2,800 retail health clinics in the U.S., nearly 50 percent more than in 2014. Traditionally, retail clinics offered a limited array of services focused on treating mild or seasonal medical issues, such as illness, preventative care and vaccinations, and basic low-level health services. As their popularity has steadily grown, due to their convenience when a problem may not be seen as important enough for a primary care visit, walk-in availability, and extended hours of operation, retail clinics have to accommodate the rise in patients. Now, these companies have shifted their focus towards expanding services, investing in technological capabilities, and growing patient volume.