With annual spending of $100 billion, electronic health records (EHRs) have grown in technology and scope. With this understanding, selecting the right EHR software can feel daunting and a bit like navigating through muddy waters. But it doesn’t have to be.
This guide will cut through the noise and cover topics, including:
- How to set clear objectives when choosing an EHR
- Assembling a diverse selection team
- How to select the right EHR vendor
- Ensuring a seamless integration
These actionable steps (and more) will help make the selection process easier, leading you to the best electronic health record for your practice.
The Benefits of EHR Software
Beyond gathering and storing a patient’s history and medical records, comprehensive EHRs automate access to information across medical billing, practice management, data security, patient engagement, and quality assurance.
The advantages of EHRs are twofold: they help a medical practice provide higher quality and safer patient care while creating concrete improvements for an agency. However, the most significant benefits include:
- Reducing medication and medical errors
- Increasing communication
- Streamlining practice administrative workflows
- Lowering costs through decreased paperwork, reduced duplicate testing, enhanced data security, and improved patient care
How to Choose the Right EHR System
Set Clear Objectives for your EHR Software
How can an EHR sync with the unique needs of your practice, elevating both patient care and administrative workflows? It starts with thinking about clear objectives for your system.
- Are you focused on improving patient care, data security, or enhancing revenue cycle management?
- Do you need a more generalized EHR system or one complete with specialty
- Do you plan to integrate payments, labs, radiology, or other services in-house?
- What about size? One EHR may suit practices of one size better than another.
Assess your practice’s critical needs alongside your budget and workflows as you search for potential vendors. Having specific objectives will guide you through many options to identify the EHR system aligned with your goals.
Focus on Key Challenges
During the selection process, you need to tackle the top issues of your current setup. Are you consumed by cumbersome EHRs, leaving less time for patient support or interactions? Are fragmented systems leading to documentation errors compromising patient safety? Is your EHR medical billing software workflow complicated?
Addressing these problems and others, such as staff management, quality assurance, or scalability, allows providers to chart a path toward an integrated EHR system that maximizes the effectiveness of medical processes.
Assemble a Selection Team
EHR systems impact not just physicians but every facet of a practice. Since these software tools affect the work of so many people, involving critical stakeholder members from your clinical, billing, and quality assurance teams can be beneficial.
For example, when a billing system is integrated with the new EHR, regular meetings and input from key team members will be necessary. Additionally, seeking feedback and customer testimonials from physicians in your specialty area can provide key insights. By leveraging the support offered by a cross-disciplinary group, you pave the way for an EHR selection process that’s inclusive and thorough.
Examine Compliance, Interoperability, and Integration Features
When choosing an EHR, understanding complex compliance and regulatory requirements like Medicaid Meaningful Use can be challenging. This is why reviewing your practice’s current software and any EHR integration or regulatory issues allows you to set benchmarks for what the new system must accomplish.
Consider these questions:
- Does the EHR system you’re choosing completely connect to your other software platforms, ensuring universal data across your practice?
- Are the features for sharing patient data with third parties HIPAA-compliant? For example, you should be able to communicate with patients easily through an EHR HIPAA-compliant portal.
- Are the features interoperable? Do they streamline the involvement of pharmacies, specialists, and other networks/parties in your patients’ care?
Research EHR Vendors
The next step in choosing an EHR is to do your due diligence when picking vendors. Below are a few key actions to consider when selecting the right vendor.
- Consult online platforms, scrutinize peer-reviewed literature, and explore prospective vendors’ websites to gather insights.
- Request free software demos and trials. If these are unavailable, ask vendors for a guided product demo.
- Interact with different vendors, participate in sector-specific conferences, and see if the vendor’s employees like the product.
This investigation will gradually allow you to determine the elements and features of an ideal EHR vendor tailored to your practice’s needs.
Investigate Costs
Now that you’ve narrowed down your vendors, it’s time to consider cost. Remember that the price of the system typically depends on three things:
- The vendor
- Features chosen
- Number of providers in your practice
When requesting an estimate, ask vendors about initial activation or licensing costs and how much each additional feature (i.e., a revenue cycle management system) will add to the price.
For example, if you have a small dermatology practice, the price may be based on a monthly subscription fee multiplied by how many providers access the system. The good news is that some cloud-based systems allow users to pay low monthly payments.
Factors to Consider During the EHR Selection Process
Training and Implementation
Implementing an EHR system can take a few weeks to several months. Ask your vendors about their plan for getting the system ready to launch. Also, see if they offer training to staff, billing managers, and physicians to ensure everyone in practice is up to speed with the new software.
Safety and Usability Challenges
When choosing the right EHR, consider the importance of usability and data security. The American Medical Association recommends discussing these challenges with members of the selection team:
- incorrect or ambiguous alerts
- process audits
- workflow support
- secure messaging
- system defaults
Customer Service Support
One study reveals a top pain point of practices is the lack of support from IT vendors after the EHR purchase. Notice if the customer service is difficult to reach or if they’re not eager to answer questions before buying. If you’re confronted with these issues early on, it could mean trouble when figuring out the new system later down the road.
Your Practice is Ready
When selecting an EHR, using a strategic and systematic approach will be your guiding star. We created this guide to help you set clear objectives, understand your current system’s pain points, assemble a dedicated selection team, and conduct a thorough vendor search. We hope these approaches set the stage for a successful EHR implementation and user journey.