Time for the next entry covering Shawn Riley’s list of 101 Tips to Make your EMR and EHR More Useful. I met someone at a conference who commented that they liked this series of posts. I hope you’re all enjoying the series as well.
25. Care coordination is much easier in an EMR and should be evaluated to be used
The idea of care coordination has never been more important in the history of healthcare. It’s the future of healthcare (at least in the US). Whether they end up being called ACOs or some other term, the switch to needing to coordinate care in order to improve the health of a population is happening as we speak. Luckily, EMR software is a great way to facilitate this care coordination.
24. Take advantage of E-Health tools
I actually think that this is a big call to EMR vendors to integrate their EMR software with the various e-health tools out there today. EHR vendors that think they can create every e-Health tool a doctor could want are going to be left behind by those systems which support the most popular consumer health tools on the market. However, that’s not to say that doctors can’t do their part. Start getting your patient using the e-health tools that will benefit them as a patient and then start requesting that your EMR vendor support the tools you’re using.
23. Make certain all caregivers know that logs are kept for any system overrides
Don’t hide the fact that everything is logged. Let everyone know that whatever is done on the system is logged. While some may see this as big brother watching them, most will realize that the logs are a protection for them. They log exactly what was done and said and who did it.
I remember one time there was some problem in our EMR system. I can’t remember the specific issue. Well, it was brought up in our staff meeting and the director said, whoever made this mistake is going to be providing breakfast for the whole staff. I went into the logs to see who’d accessed the patient to do the offending task. Little did the director (who was also a practicing provider a few times a week) know that she was the offending party. Everyone in the clinic enjoyed a nice breakfast that week.
22. Give caregivers the ability to override the system when necessary
Mistakes happen in documentation in an EMR. We’re all imperfect human beings (except for my wife) who make mistakes. So, you need an option and likely a process for how and who can make corrections to what was done in the EMR. Just be sure that everything that’s “overwritten” is logged and the reason for the change is well documented.
21. Develop a root cause analysis process for the EMR
I’m not that familiar with root cause analysis processes, so I’ll just share what Shawn says about it:
You very likely already have a root cause analysis model for your practice. You will need to adopt that model to the EMR. If you don’t, you will create a likelihood for the same errors to continually repeat. The EMR process is different than a usual root cause analysis. You will need to take into account interfaces, security roles, single sign on, and several other things beyond the “simple” human process.
If you want to see my analysis of the other 101 EMR and EHR tips, I’ll be updating this page with my 101 EMR and EHR tips analysis. So, click on that link to see the other EMR tips.
