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How EHR Software Streamlines Patient Management

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Kaiden Hale
How EHR Software Streamlines Patient Management

Healthcare institutes, whether they’re a private practice or a public hospital, are shifting from the traditional paper-based method towards Electronic Health Records (EHR). Various government policies also complement this change by providing incentives and reimbursements to the practice that implement EHR software. However, implementing an EHR software is not only about going paperless. It’s about making your practice more efficient and effective by simplifying your clinical and non-clinical workflows. This way, you’ll be able to improve your patient management process and provide patients with a better experience.

Before moving forward to how EHR software can streamline your patient management, let’s talk about the key aspects of patient management. These include:

  • Collaborative diagnostics of the problem(s)
  • Patient information
  • Action planning 
  • Scheduling follow-up 
  • Consultations and referrals 
  • Patient education
  • Outcome management

Although the list could go on, here are the essential aspects of patient management. You might be thinking, “How can EHR help me in these areas?” Here’s how:

Communication

Effective communication among practitioners has always been a problem. However, EHR enables physicians to easily communicate with each other and allows them to view the patient’s entire medical history. Instead of notes from their last visit. Practitioners can also make detailed evaluations through unified patient information. Thus, helping reach their final diagnoses all the while faster.

Patient Information and Security

Almost all of the EHR solutions store, manage and organize patient information. It may be done through a cloud-based EHR, web-based EHR and SaaS EHR. Although many practitioners have their doubts about cloud-based EHR’s security, they are one of the most secure means of storing patient information. 

You can also read more about some of the security concerns about Cloud-based EHRs here.

Usually, patient information is divided into two categories; patient profile and patient records. Patient records typically include a patient’s medical history, lab results, charting, SOAP notes, etc. On the other hand, a patient profile, in addition to all the information already present in patient records, also contains a patient’s demographics, medical billing, claims, insurance information etc.

A unified source of patient information helps practitioners better understand a patient’s condition and provide timely responses.

Scheduling and E-Prescribing

EHR software like AdvancedMD are designed to help practitioners by simplifying their tasks. Scheduling appointments online has benefits for patients and practitioners. Instead of calling every time to make an appointment, patients can simply send an appointment request through your patient portal. In addition, it also sends automated reminders to patients to reduce no-shows.

According to a study, a 3% increase in no-shows can result in a $5,000-$10,000 higher annual profit as well. So not only does it help the patients, but it’s also beneficial for the practitioners.

In addition to scheduling, EHR also enables you to use e-prescriptions, rather than usual prescriptions. You can send an electronic version of the medications to your patients and they can collect these medicines from nearby pharmacies. This is a beneficial feature for patients that live far away from the practice. Here are some benefits that e-prescriptions provide your patients that you just couldn’t have any other way.

Patient Safety: Pharmacists are only human and often make mistakes when interpreting hand-written prescriptions. However, the chances of misinterpreting an e-prescription are slim to none.

Save Time and Money: Patients no longer have to make the trip of first coming to your practice and then go to the pharmacy. Now all they have to do is visit their nearby pharmacy and collect their medicine.  

Consultations and Referrals

You, as a practitioner, might require consultations and even referrals from time to time. EHR solutions also assist in carrying out this task. Instead of sending notes of just one visit, you can now share the entire patient medical history. Once, the consulting physicians know the full story, they will be able to provide more accurate and credible insights. Otherwise, it’s very likely that they might look over something and disregards something important.

When you’re referring a patient to a specialist, you also have to provide them with sufficient patient information. Now without a unified and digitized platform that can store patient information, you would have to collect all the notes, charts and lab reports manually. Even then, you might need to explain the situation verbally as well. EHR has eliminated this problem by creating a single source of truth for patient information. 

Outcome Improvement

One of the most frequently asked questions is, “How can an EHR improve my practice’s outcome?” The simplest answer is that EHR helps reduce errors. It ensures that all of the ICD-10 and CPT codes and correctly coded. It alerts practitioners of any allergies that might affect the patient. However, that’s not all. Here’s how an effective EHR software like AdvancedMD EHR can improve outcomes:

  • Enabling clinical reminders.
  • Making it possible for practitioners to look at all aspects of a patient’s health.
  • Collecting the entire patient information in a single place.
  • Improving the interpretation, analysis, and sharing of a patient’s information.
  • Ensuring an evidence-based approach is followed at POC.
  • Making sure treatment plans that may cause adverse side effects are not followed.

Although the list could go on and on, I’m sure you’d get tired of reading about the benefits of EHR. Instead, might I suggest you implement one and find out for yourself.

One of the most effective EHR solutions is AdvancedMD EHR software. As a practitioner, nothing matters more than patient management. AdvancedMD EHR offers all of these features along with an extensive suite of other features, all built to help your practice become more effective. But don’t just take my word for it, check out AdvancedMD EHR demo and find out for yourself.

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Kaiden Hale
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