Small medical facility managers already burdened with many daily responsibilities may find digitizing their practice's records keeping system to be a nuisance that prevents them from focusing on more pressing issues.
However, a recent report published by the Green Bay Press-Gazette, a Wisconsin news source, indicates that electronic medical records software can not only ensure a facility's compliance with government regulations, but also enhance its time management.
For example, according to Joan Conley, a nurse in St. Vincent Hospital's Surgical Services Unit in Green Bay, staff members used to frequently struggle with one another to gain access to patient information on the hospital's paper charts. But, with all that information available electronically, a significant amount of time is saved because every staff member can access the same information simultaneously.
Moreover, time efficiency is further maximized for the facility's healthcare professionals because electronic records can be seamlessly shared between practices. This mitigates the time these professionals may have once needed to wait for clearance to access another facilities' clinical data.
St. Vincent's director of inpatient surgical services Patti Wauters, also mentioned in the article that time-saving has been documented in a reduced volume of phone calls and "tedious non-nursing stuff."
It is important to note though that developing St. Vincent's EMR system reportedly took months of training and implementation. Considering what a massive endeavor digitization is for a medical practice, it would benefit facility managers to hire a medical technology consulting company to assist in the transition rather than attempting to do everything in-house. Medical consultants can help install a software suite such as Medisoft Clinical that allows facilities to build a new EMR system over their existing infrastructure, providing a transition period that's as seamless as possible.
Microwize Technology is a leading healthcare IT consultant offering products such as electronic medical records software and medical billing software from top providers like Allscripts and McKesson, including McKesson's Medisoft, Lytec and Practice Choice products.