In theory, an electronic health record can unlock tremendous efficiency and visibility benefits for healthcare providers. However, reality has shown that data entry and migration burden continue to be a significant barrier to EHR adoption in the long-term post-acute care (LTPAC) industry. This is due to the lack of LTPAC-centric functions and capabilities that focuses on driving efficiency in the ambulatory clinic environment.
The good news is: things have changed. New EHR software built for and by LTPAC professionals like PacEHR™ electronic health record understands your workflow’s complexity and targets critical points of inefficiency, such as data entry. If you have been discouraged by general EHR systems that seem to add more to your work instead of assisting you, these are the capabilities to look for in your next EHR software that guarantees a documentation time of under 3 minutes.
- Leverage data that already exists for to speed up documentation.
Often times LTPAC patients do not see drastic changes in conditions and course of treatments. That means the fundamental data that a care provider needs to input may not significantly change between different visits. This is also a unique difference between health records in an ambulatory clinic and a non-ambulatory clinic setting.
You need an EHR system capable of leveraging existing data to speed up the documentation process. This power comes in 2 primary forms: visibility and execution. In other words, the EHR system you need will show you data from past encounters and transfer that data into the current record.
For example, PacEHR™ electronic health record can import any item or an entire section of previous notes into the new encounter to speed up your data entry and maintain consistency. With PacEHR™ electronic health record, you can select from a previous note or any combination of notes that have previously been signed into the new encounter so that you have complete visibility and control of a patient’s data.
This level of data manipulation extends beyond the encounter’s note to diagnosis. Instead of manually searching for a diagnosis and inputting the code, providers can easily import the diagnosis from a previous encounter to reduce workload and improve coding accuracy.
- Utilize the searchable library of diagnosis codes to reduce errors
In the case of a new diagnosis needed, your EHR system should be able to help you quickly and accurately find the proper code. A searchable library of diagnosis by code or keywords is a must-have for any EHR system that improves operational efficiency and patient care.
Some value-adds, such as PacEHR™ electronic health record’s coding suggestion based on the physical location of care provision and built-in MIPS/CCM reporting and documentation, can meaningfully increase clinical outcomes and reduce claim denials due to human errors.
- Reduce disruptions and manual labor with speech-to-text functionality
A survey found that half of the physicians’ average workdays are spent entering data into EHRs and conducting clerical work, while just 27 percent is spent with actual patients. For LTPAC providers, this problem only intensifies with the lack of ancillary staff to support them.
A speech-to-text functionality can drastically reduce the time it takes to document an encounter by eliminating manual data entry. Automated transcription of speech into text allows care providers to conduct a visit and document it at the same time with the press of a button. The help of intelligent AI and advanced technology allows providers to maintain eye contact with their patients, not the screens.
- Utilize text replacements capability to minimize repeated data entry
One of the top goals of EHR systems is to minimize the amount of typing required in documenting an encounter. Text replacement capabilities like “normals” and “macros” in PacEHR™ electronic health record allow care providers to quickly input information by either choosing from a list of pre-configured options or entering key words. Compared to text-to-speech, text replacement offers improved consistency in both format and content, yet does not lock providers down with a strict set of rules.
PacEHR™ electronic health record’s macros are fully customizable to allow for maximum flexibility and adaptability. Each provider has specific documentation behaviors that general EHR systems fail to account for. Customizable gives providers complete control over how they want to document their visits by replacing an entire field in the note with my pre-selected text of their choice. With a one-time setup at the beginning of implementation, care providers can save time in each encounter and adjust your pre-selected at any point.
- Customize encounter documentation templates for each group of patient
In LTPAC care, both providers and patients are moving targets. A balance between standardized data collection and customizable mode of data capture marks the difference between an EHR system that works for you and one that forces you to work for it.
An LTPAC-focused EHR system like PacEHR™ electronic health record allows providers to configure encounter templates for each group of patients without compromising data consistency and integrity. Make sure you leverage that flexibility to build an optimized workflow for each of your patient groups.
Also, look for an EHR system that offers encounter templates catered specifically to critical data of LTPAC. General EHR systems built for ambulatory clinics require many data fields that are unrelated to the LTPAC industry. This creates a waste of effort and frustration for care providers who are already overwhelmed with their daily workload. There are no such required data fields in PacEHR™ electronic health record. With PacEHR™ electronic health record, providers need to enter only the most critical and relevant data. This puts providers back in the driver’s seat of both their data and process.
With these tips, you can complete documentation of your encounter and be ready for the next patient in less than 3 minutes. If you want to see how PacEHR™ electronic health record works in real life situation, schedule a demo with us below.