You may know of facilities that have digital records. If your facility hasn’t yet, you should understand the benefits that electronic medical records could have on the performance of your staff and patient care.
1. Convenience of All Records in the Same Area
When someone takes care of a patient at your facility, they can’t easily access all of the patient information when the recent X-rays are in the nurses’ office and the medication administration record (MAR) is in the med. room. With electronic medical records, all of the patients’ information is easily accessible in one area.
The staff doesn’t have to waste time looking for all of the information. The staff also doesn’t have to worry about losing any of the documentation, either.
2. Convenience of the Ability to Send Information Quickly
Your company could also benefit from digitizing all of the medical records since your staff can easily send the information to a doctor or another facility from any computer that you connect with your network. Ultimately, you’ll save time and frustration when you can send aspects of a patients’ medical record without the need for a fax machine or an envelope.
Should an emergency situation arise, a facility member may send the patients’ information to the medical center without scanning, printing, and sending the copies of the documents with the emergency medical personnel.
3. Accuracy of the Records
If you choose to digitize your medical records, you lessen the number of possible medication errors since everything anyone will need in your facility is immediately in front of your employees. Additionally, the material is in clear print. One reason why medical errors occur is that another person can’t read the writing on the prescription, which leads them to make out the script to the best of their ability.
4. Convenience of No Bulky Paperwork
Another convenience of an electronic medical record is that your facility won’t have as much needless paperwork lying around. All of your records are on the computer so you don’t have to find storage for the numerous books that your staff uses to keep track of medical records.
5. Possibility of Less of an Expense
Electronic medical records might also save you money. For instance, you won’t have to pay for the refiling costs, nor will you need to pay for storage to keep all the previous medical records before you can properly discard of them.
6. Improvement in Productivity
Traditional medical records take time to complete properly, such as with a person who initials each space properly on the correct date. With an electronic medical record, the process is less time-consuming to complete, and the staff will have more time to spend on patient care.
7. Possibility of a Financial Incentive
Certain programs like the Medicare EHR Incentive Program will provide you with a financial incentive if you switch to electronic medical records. Depending on the type of facility you run and the patients who use the services, you may also apply for the Medicare EHR Incentive Program.
Your job as someone who helps improve the protocols of your facility is to reduce stress on your employees and improve patient care. One way to accomplish both of these goals is with electronic medical records. Once you digitize your initial medical records, you may continue to upload documents to the system or even consider using a service that optimizes searching the records.
Contact Indigital, serving Minneapolis, St. Paul, and the surrounding Minnesota areas, once you have an electronic medical record system. We can help you better organize it and add in any additional documentation.