What are Electronic Medical Records?
An Electronic Medical Record (EMR), commonly known as Electronic Health Record or EHR, is a paperless, digital and computerized system to maintain all patient medical data. Implementing an EMR / EHR system is designed to increase office efficiency and productivity as well as reduce documentation time and errors by streamlining workflow processes.
7 Layer IT Solutions has created relationships with some of the most well-known and established Electronic Medical Record vendors in the industry such as Centricity, Epic, NextGen and Agility, to name a few. We are able to implement both on-premise and hosted solutions, which give the greatest amount of flexibility to the practice, whether it is a one-doctor clinic or an IPA.
Benefits of EMR
Implementing an electronic medical records software system, into your medical practice offers a variety of advantages and benefits. There are many concerns that doctors have with the thought of migrating from paper records to a digital system can be very difficult, expensive and complicated to manage. That is not the case anymore. The newer electronic medical records systems are much easier to implement, use and manage with simpler graphical user interfaces
The Government Can Help!
Because of the recent stimulus package, clinics using medical records software system such as those mentioned above, can receive thousands of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid incentives. These incentive dollars make the idea of implementing an EMR / EHR system much more of a reality for smaller clinics. Never before has it been possible to have your EMR software paid for by the government, so the time to act is now!
Efficient Workflow
As computer terminals have become physically smaller and smaller, the ability for medical offices to unobtrusively include them in examination rooms has increased markedly. Increased access to patient records from anywhere within the practice is one of the key advantages of electronic medical records. No longer is it necessary to ensure paper files are properly transported, filed and re-filed throughout your office.
Appointment requests can be instantly entered by the practitioner so that office staff, and the patient record itself is updated. No longer do the front receptionists have to spend their entire day filing paperwork and pulling charts and re-filing charts after visits. The clutter and human error of filing is gone. Many office managers see a marked time savings within the first week of use. This can add up to hundreds of hours over a period of a year, and ensure that more patients can be served, increasing the efficiency of the practice.
Lost Records?
Lost records can be a major nightmare for the practitioner and his or her staff. While most well-run practices rarely experience such an occurrence, all it takes is one lost file to see why an electronic medical records system can offer a huge safety net. There is never an issue with record mix-ups in an electronic system, as the doctor has access to all records from any terminal in the office. If a clinic is utilizing a hosted EMR solution, all the patient data backups are done at their datacenters, eliminating that task from your list. However, if you have an on-premise solution, we will make sure that you have timely and consistent backups of all your imperative patient data. 7 Layer IT Solutions is well-versed in the HIPAA guidelines and requirements and our team will ensure that the clinic is not liable for any violations from a security standpoint.
Decreased Operating Costs
The increase in practice efficiency often occurs very rapidly. In fact, many clinics are able to see full ROI within their first year of implementation. Operating costs begin to decrease rapidly and most clinics are able to cut overall staffing due to the efficiencies that the Electronic Medical Record system delivers to the clinic.