Implementing an EHR system into the medical practice or healthcare facility is to:

  • Improve health and offer the best solutions
  • Improve the quality of care
  • Minimize healthcare costs

In trying to comply with the federal mandates to have digitalized records that demonstrate meaningful use, having an electronic health record system will be standard.

But where is your head?

According to Brunken, President & Chairman of the Board at The MGIS Companies, an organization providing medical professional liability insurance to members of the healthcare community, “as healthcare professionals undertake the process of selecting, implement, and adopting EHR technology, they need to ensure that another type of documentation is being recorded in order to protect themselves in the event of malpractice claims”
“What we want physicians to understand is from the beginning stages of selecting an EHR, it’s important that they document why they chose a particular EHR. And it can’t be price or financial — those may be business considerations — but they need to document why they choose a particular EHR to promote the integrity of the medical record, enhance clinical care, so forth and so on. That needs to be documented.”
This need for documentation carries through the entire journey to EHR adoption, from selection to implementation and beyond. “Once you’re on the system, you need to have a process document where you’re buy ventolin in mexico showing anybody (i.e., plaintiff’s attorneys) that you have a process as a medical practice to sit down once a month with your users to evaluate what’s working, what’s not working,” adds Brunken.  Unfortunately, liability will not be shared by the system vendor but instead will rest squarely on the head of the doctor or healthcare provider. According to Brunken, at the heart of this work to ensure liability while adopting health IT is a much simpler idea, the importance of relationships between providers and patients.”

But where is your head?

Is it staring at a computer monitor as you enter data into your electronic health record system or is it focused on your patient as you engage with the individual?  You need to come up with a strategy where data can be entered without compromising the patient-doctor relationship on a personal level.  Perhaps that means dictating into a system where the data is entered for you.  Perhaps it is engaging the patient to enter the data with you while in the consultation or examination room.

Patients want to feel that they are participating in their care and not left out in the dark.  Sharing the documentation with them, is a good way to do this.

What have your experiences been?  Share your thoughts in the comment box below.