Healthcare providers can never get enough advice about how to implement EHRs. Maine's regional extension center held a forum for healthcare providers last week and one physician, who has been practicing in a paperless environment for the last five years, gave excellent guidance. Take heed.
Buy-in from the top to the bottom - not just the executives or the doctors - of a physician group is critical to the success of <a href="/directory/electronic-health-record-ehr" target="_blank" class="directory-item-link"><a href="/directory/electronic-health-record-ehr" target="_blank" class="directory-item-link">EHR use, according to Scott Patch, MD, who is part of a multi-specialty medical group called InterMed P.A., in Yarmouth, Maine. This piece of advice is a common one for best practices, but it bears repeating again and again.
Whoever touches the patient in a physician office would need to be on board. That includes registration staff because they will input information into the EHR when the patient comes in for the visit. It includes the patient accounting staff who would be using the EHR system as well. So when in the initial planning stages of the EHR implementation, include everyone who touches the patient.
Training is also critical. Users of the system, not just the clinicians, need training. As Patch noted, registration staff may need more training than others in the office. Who needs more training, however, will likely differ from office to office. I would add that those who are most apprehensive - be they a group, department, or individual - should receive additional or more intensive training.
Patch also advised preloading patient data over scanning paper documents because EHR systems and their fields are built to hold structured data. Don't rely on scanning because it will make it too easy for physicians to refer to the paper charts and not transition to the EHRs.
More upfront labor is involved in preloading patient data, but like anything, doing the heavy-lifting early on will make the transition easier and encourage faster adoption.
If you have your own implementation advice to provide, please feel free to share.
Patty Enrado blogs daily at EHRWatch.com.
