Paper records.
Though the standard in medical record keeping, they’re clunky. They’re not always there exactly when you need them. And they’re not always user friendly.
Electronic medical record (EMR) software marries the familiarity of traditional patient records with the convenience, accessibility, and efficiency of modern technology.
Adopting anesthesia EMR software at your practice isn’t just about ditching paper for the digital.
It’s about investing in an anesthesia information management system that transforms how you work.
Anesthesia EMR Software: 6 Immediate Benefits
Upgrading from paper charts to EMR opens your existing workflows to optimization and flexibility.
EMR software integration at your practice:
- Ensures compliance
- Simplifies data analysis
- Improves patient file security
- Streamlines billing
- Enhances record accuracy
- Frees up office space
1. Ensured Compliance
As patient care reporting and billing standards change, so, too, can EMR software.
With a few quick adjustments to master templates, forms used across your entire EMR system are updated and immediately put to use. Old medical codes can also be swapped out for new ones.
Unlike with anesthesia paper charting, there’s no delay from reformatting, making copies, and distribution.
You’ll never worry about a colleague — or colleagues — using the wrong information or not meeting new regulations.
2. Simplified Data Analysis
Taking a deep dive into your practice’s performance, outcomes of treatment, or supplies used doesn’t require setting aside the better part of a day.
EMRs allow you to create a compilation of specific data metrics and instantly generate comprehensive reports. It’s a breeze to provide required information to regulators for compliance checks or reports to your superiors.
Paper records need to be manually tabulated and evaluated to identify trends — something that takes up precious time.
3. Improved Security
EMRs make sure that patient records are only accessible to those who should have access in the first place.
With required encryption and other digital protections, EMR software is virtually impossible to gain access to without the right credentials. Both you and your patients will never need to worry about someone seeing private information — such as a nosey staff member, a courier, or even a family member.
And anytime a patient’s digital medical file is accessed, it’s tracked.
4. Streamlined Billing
An EMR also serves as real-time medical charge capture.
Any patient service that’s delivered is automatically logged and simultaneously added to an invoice. There’s no need to pass along a patient’s paper medical file to a billing staff member or service to draw up the final bill.
When it comes time for reimbursement, all that’s left to do is finalize the invoice and send it out.
As an added benefit, invoices generated by EMRs are checked by the software for completion. If there’s a blank fillable field or inconsistency, the program alerts you long before an insurance company rejects the submission, saving you from the time-consuming dispute process.
Anesthesia billing becomes a simpler, predictable process.
5. Enhanced Accuracy
Doctor’s handwriting — especially during the throes of patient care — isn’t always the easiest to read. There’s a reason it’s become a cliche.
With EMRs, information captured during a patient interaction is clearly documented. There’s no struggle to understand sloppy handwriting or confusing terms.
As patient treatment is tracked in real time, EMRs provide healthcare professionals with a true portrait of patient care. Anesthesiologists and other care providers can see the exact time and type of painkillers and other medicines administered or examine changes in a patient’s vital signs.
6. Freed-up Office Space
While paper medical records can be cumbersome, storing them is a whole new level of inefficiency.
Requiring plenty of space, paper records are often stored in large, bulky filing cabinets — some smaller anesthesia practices have an entire room dedicated to file storage. At hospitals, paper files are often stored off-site in a warehouse — ever see the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark?
And when it’s time to access a patient’s file, it’s an ordeal to locate and deliver the documents.
Put simply, paper records require more work to maintain.
With EMRs, your entire archive of patient records is immediately available — fully categorized and optimized for your use. The only equipment you’ll need to retrieve them is a mobile device or the desktop computer you already use.
And those thousands of patient files? They’re all securely stored in the cloud.
Anesthesia EMR Software is Optimized Workflows in Action
Pivoting away from traditional paper records is indeed a big change for any anesthesia practice.
Paper charts are what’s been used in “modern” medicine for decades.
Integrating EMR software into your anesthesia practice’s existing operations makes your patient’s medical records a true tool in providing better care.
