Monday, November 4, 2013

Tips for a Physicians Practice to Implement EHR and other Technologies

Published by Pradip Sengupta, CEO of IPS Technology Services www.ipstechnologyservices.com

The extent of use of traditional IT in doctors’ offices has fallen far behind in terms of effectively using IT to add value to business. With the recent push towards mandatory adoption of Healthcare Information Systems, namely electronic health records (EHR) and other related tools, a doctor's office will need to upgrade its technical knowledge primarily IT to a much higher level.
What becomes important in this context is to understand the importance of thoroughly documenting the current workflow and pay attention to the impact of change. Without addressing how Health Information Systems is going to impact people and processes, an electronic health records (EHR) implementation effort is bound to fail. In order to improve the probability of success for electronic health records (EHR) implementation, a doctor’s office should do the following:
  • Form a team with all stakeholders
  • Identify a champion of EHR implementation
  • Ensure Leadership commitment and its visible demonstration
  • Identify key success factors and a process to measure them
  • Map the current process and weed out non-value added steps
  • Define the “to-be” process
  • Address training needs for the users of the EHR EMR system
  • Make sure to provide proper training and not cut corners
  • Implement EHR EMR to make the “to-be” process more efficient
Purchasing the most popular electronic health records or EHR technology and installing it without addressing the above steps will prevent a physician’s practice from getting fullest potential benefits. It is advised that the practice asks an electronic health records (EHR) vendor about and evaluates its ability to address all of the above and not just the features and functionalities of the healthcare software.

To know more about Healthcare IT implementation best practices, feel free to call IPS Technology Services at 248-835-9895 or go to http://www.ipstechnologyservices.com/

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