Benefits and Goals of EMR for a Practice

Electronic Medical Records (EMR) applications are clearly expensive. Early on these software companies would try and sell that the efficiency created from their software would allow you to see more patients offsetting the cost per provider. I have yet to see a confirmation of that benefit from a practice.

 

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was designed with the understanding that EMR will not necessarily benefit your top line but may (over time) create soft cost savings for the provider and tremendous overall system savings nationally.

 

As we have seen from our customers, the benefits fall more on data integrity, accuracy of reporting and speed of pulling up patient records. Not to mention finally centralizing data and in some cases bringing more consistency to multi-physician workflow processes. When evaluating EMR be sure to:

1.        Set realistic goals to judge success

2.       Evaluate CCHIT apps

3.       View a demo replicating how the software is currently working in your Specialty.

 

 

Good article on the iPad coming out April 3. “iPad stoking doctor interest in tablet computers http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/02/22/bica0222.htm

Pilot Project with Microsoft HealthVault and the Cleveland Clinic could improve chronic disease management. Connecting at-home medical devices, doctors and patients over the internet could create proactive healthcare. Read the release