The inception of Electronic Health Records (EHR) dates back to the 1960s, when organizations such as the Mayo Clinic made groundbreaking efforts in the field, despite their initial restricted use due to high expenses. With the goal to improve EHR efficiency, technological developments and Institute of Medicine initiatives by the 1980s pushed for the adoption of electronic records over paper. The HITECH Act, which encouraged meaningful usage, and the establishment of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) in the 2000s represented a major turning point.

EHRs are now essential to patient-centered care because they provide advantages like better patient engagement, easier documentation, better care coordination, and increased clinical efficiency. But ongoing regulatory changes have stifled EHR innovation. To meet changing reimbursement structures, interoperability standards, growing consumer expectations, and clinical stress brought on by the move to Value-Based Care (VBC), vendors need to step up their innovation efforts.

This blog explores top EHR implementation strategies for vendors to collaborate with care providers and drive innovation in patient-centric care.

EHR Implementation Strategies: Key Approaches for Successful Integration

1. Documentation

Sustaining clinical quality, guaranteeing correct payments, and adhering to regulatory requirements all depend on efficient recordkeeping. Extensive Evaluation and Management (E/M) documentation has historically resulted in duplicate data entry. To minimize repeated documentation, such as re-recording patient histories, save time, and lighten the burden on healthcare professionals, recent CMS policies were adopted in 2020. More workflows and interoperability standards can be added by developers to improve the effectiveness and user experience of EHR systems.

Use Case: After a medical institution implemented an EHR system that incorporated revisions to CMS policy for 2020, nurses were able to effectively reuse patient history data, which resulted in a 30% reduction in daily documentation time and more time for direct patient care.

2. Care Quality Management

Improving care quality management has the potential to greatly enhance medical services. Vendors of EHRs can incorporate cutting-edge features to enhance patient outcomes. Care differences can be minimized and uniform treatment can be promoted across facilities by ensuring consistent best practices through the direct integration of clinical practice standards and standardized care protocols into EHR systems. Reminders for follow-up appointments and automated alerts for medication allergies can help clinicians make timely, well-informed decisions.

Use Case: A health system can improve care consistency, lower errors, and improve patient outcomes by integrating clinical standards and standardized care procedures into its EHR system. It can also incorporate automatic alerts for drug allergies and follow-up reminders.

3. Minimize EHR Errors

Despite being revolutionary, EHR systems still have a lot of drawbacks, particularly when it comes to minimizing errors brought on by user weariness. Serious repercussions from these problems could include prescribing the wrong medications. EHR providers can put tactics like sophisticated algorithms for alarms and mistake detection, frequent system updates, reliable data backups, and data analytics to track usage trends, spot patterns, and proactively fix problems into practice.

Use Case: To enable timely, informed decisions and reduce care disparities, a health system incorporates clinical guidelines and standardized care protocols into its electronic health record (EHR) system. This integration includes automatic alerts for drug allergies and follow-up appointment reminders.

4. Workflow Orchestration

Because of longer wait times and a higher chance of misdiagnosis, the complexity of EHR workflows can put a strain on care teams and have a detrimental effect on patients. Simplifying and standardizing communication between patients, doctors, and receptionists can increase healthcare efficiency and make EHR usage easier. Real-time updates, user-friendly interfaces, and automated task management are features that EHR providers can build into their systems.

Use Case: By integrating automated task management, an EHR vendor can streamline administrative tasks for staff members, expedite follow-up visits and patient check-ins, and give doctors rapid access to updated patient data—all of which improve patient happiness and the effectiveness of the healthcare team.

5. Interoperability

Healthcare interoperability is becoming normal practice due to regulations such as the Cures Act Final Rule that demand smooth information transmission between different contexts. This shift is powered by FHIR, which makes it possible for patient data to be effectively sent across various platforms. To address these objectives, EHR vendors need to make the necessary technological infrastructure investments to guarantee that their systems can manage and exchange standardized data sets like USCDI.

Use Case: In an effort to facilitate USCDI, a regional health network improves EHR systems and implements FHIR standards. This allows for smooth data interchange across hospitals, clinics, and ancillary services, leading to improved patient care, fewer errors, and accurate patient data.

6. PDMP and EPCS Support

With opioids accounting for 75% of drug overdose deaths in 2020, the opioid crisis is still a serious problem. Healthcare professionals can detect high-risk cases during consultations and have access to detailed patient histories by integrating PDMP standards into EHR workflows, which can help reduce this problem. To improve decision-making and patient safety, EHR developers must include features that allow healthcare professionals to examine medical histories and identify high-risk patients. These features should be implemented through automation, warnings, and notifications.

Use Case: During consultations, a physician utilizes an upgraded electronic health record system with integrated PDMP access and automatic alerts to identify high-risk patients, guaranteeing DEA compliance and improving patient safety by lowering opioid usage.

7. Telehealth

Increased adoption of telehealth by healthcare professionals was spurred by the CMS and private payers’ promotion of telemedicine payment in response to the COVID-19 epidemic. By integrating telehealth capabilities, creating user-friendly interfaces, putting real-time warnings in place, and upholding HIPAA compliance for safe data transfer, EHR developers can facilitate successful tele-encounters.

Use Case: A new EHR system with integrated telehealth technologies is implemented in a rural clinic, enabling doctors to follow chronic patients remotely and provide secure video consultations. By streamlining scheduling and communication through patient portals, the intuitive interface enhances patient access to care and lessens the stress of travel.

8. Mobility

Given the prevalence of mobile devices in contemporary society, more patients would utilize mobile apps to manage their medical information, make appointment requests, and, if necessary, obtain prescription refills. To improve convenience, EHR developers should allow seamless integration of third-party mobile apps for appointment scheduling and telemedicine features.

Use Case: By incorporating mobile app features into their EHR system, a healthcare provider can improve patient engagement by enabling patients to use their smartphones to make appointment requests and seek medication refills. They can also embrace the “app ecosystem” for easy connection with third-party apps.

9. Patient Identity Management

To enhance patient information exchange and care coordination, the Cures Act Final Rule requires certain technological standards, such as ADT notifications. The importance of security and data privacy increases when provider firms enable data interchange through APIs. To avoid data fragmentation, EHR developers must provide unified patient records, strong authorization mechanisms, and robust patient identification.

Use Case: By adding robust patient identification procedures and ADT notifications to its EHR system, a hospital network improves patient safety and data accuracy while also boosting care coordination.

10. Application Usability

EHR implementation is hampered by physician burnout brought on by the use of health information technology (HIT). Burnout is caused by a number of problems, including inconsistencies in data formats, inadequate information architecture, clinical errors, and inefficiencies in processes. By creating standards for incorporating features into EHR workflows, optimizing procedures, and lowering errors, EHR developers can address these problems.

Use Case: By updating its EHR system with standardized data entry and better information architecture, a regional healthcare system reduces clinician burnout while boosting usability and facilitating effective healthcare delivery.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on EHR Implementation Strategies

What are the main benefits of implementing EHR systems?

EHR systems offer numerous benefits, including enhanced patient involvement, improved documentation and data accessibility, improved care coordination, and higher clinical workflow efficiency. EHRs also help to ensure accurate billing and adherence to regulations.

How can EHR vendors ensure data security and patient privacy?

By putting strong encryption techniques into place, abiding by HIPAA regulations, employing safe authentication procedures, updating systems often to fix vulnerabilities, and carrying out regular security audits, EHR providers may guarantee data security and patient privacy.

What are the challenges faced during EHR implementation?

Healthcare personnel resistance to change, high initial expenses, problems with existing systems’ interoperability, data migration complexity, and the requirement for intensive user support and training are typical obstacles.

How does interoperability improve patient care?

Interoperability ensures that medical personnel have access to complete, up-to-date patient records and allows data to move seamlessly across different healthcare systems. This reduces the likelihood of errors, stops pointless testing, and enhances care coordination overall.

Conclusion

HIT developers need to strike a balance between operational costs and solution quality in order to scale up, meet Cures Act standards, and address current obstacles related to EHR usage. By concentrating on EHR optimization and utilizing outside skill sets, healthcare efficiency can be greatly increased, helping EHR developers to turn the tide in their favor.