The Benefits of an EMR System: The Intangibles

Direct savings and hidden savings can quantified. It may be difficult, but with some attention to detail, the savings and benefits can be added up and recognized. However, there many benefits that cannot be translated into a cash value but, in the end, are just as real and just as important.

Privacy and Security

An electronic management system allows only authorized users to access their work and associated data. Medical records can be secured, and routed only to those with a need to access the data. Alternatively, extraordinary measures would be necessary to implement office procedures designed to protect such documents. If a user is assigned a difficult case, they must handle it, or pass it to someone who can. Work cannot just disappear. The automated audit trail (history) leaves an indelible record of who, what, where and when during each step of the workflow as documents and information are being processed.

Improved Service

Access to information is instantaneous and staff or referring physicians can book exams easily over the web. The frequent administrative use of the phone and fax to book and confirm appointments can be reduced or eliminated, so staff can concentrate on more productive and rewarding office work.

Employee Satisfaction

When computerized workflow systems were in there infancy, there was fear that users would feel oppressed and dissatisfied by being directed by a computer. The actual experience is in fact just the opposite; users became more satisfied with their work. Workplace experts recognized that the optimum work environment was to select the one most important piece of work (assigning suitable work- the right thing), and complete it (feeling a sense of accomplishment), before moving on to the next item.

Organizational Options

There can be certain advantages to performing certain work in a particular location. Local labor markets, tax incentives and real estate resources can vary widely from location to location, and indeed internationally. Information portability is much more efficient and so work can be performed at any location and outside normal business hours. Indeed the physical office space can be significantly reduced because the paper file burden can be minimized or eliminated. This is of a particular concern to physicians and other healthcare professionals that rely heavily on paper records and are required by law to archive and store all patient files for extended periods of time.

Contributed by Ted Barrington.

The Benefits of an EMR System: The Benefits You Might Not Notice

The direct cost savings are readily measured and recognized. But there is another set of benefits that are real and valuable but are very difficult to measure, sometimes called the hidden savings or soft savings.

Control

One of the problems of manual work management is that the most experienced people are also expert at finding the easy work, making their productivity appear even higher. Yet they are the ones who should be handling the hardest cases that a beginner might struggle with for a long time. A workflow system ensures the cases/work is assigned to the most appropriate worker.

Monitoring

Practically all systems include reporting and analysis tools that can be used by a manager to make informed decisions regarding business processes. Some examples include the total work accomplished, the volume, turn-around time, client response times, patient outcomes etc.

Management

Managers can expand the span of their supervisory control, spend more time improving workers skills and have more time to help with the most demanding cases. With an EMR, routine reporting, data collection and the assignment of work now becomes an automated function of the workflow management system. Implementation necessarily increases the qualitative nature of a manager’s contribution to an organization.

Process Improvement Opportunity

To realize productivity improvements sometimes a process should be completely taken apart and redesigned, akin to tearing down a house and rebuilding it anew. This is an expensive proposition but here lies the greatest potential for organizational improvements when implementing a computerized workflow system. Dramatic changes to a work process can be traumatic for users; however most workers recognize the improved process and can migrate to the new system with far less training. The examination and reengineering of the current workflow is inevitable when an organization or team is committed to employing a computerized management system.

The Benefits of an EMR System: Money, Money, Money

There aren't too many people who would say they don't want any more money. In fact, the expense of an electronic medical record system is one of the things that causes physicians and clinics to hesitate when it comes time to adopt a system. Even with the funding available from OntarioMD, the cost of an EMR system can seem overwhelming.

But what if an EMR system can actually save a clinic money? Over time, the system will pay for itself. While the direct cost savings can be substantial, they aren't likely to cover the cost of the system -- right away, that is. But, over time, the direct savings will build up.

How, exactly? You will no longer need as many staff members to perform tasks that can now be completed automatically or more efficiently using the EMR system. And, once implemented and used, the reporting functionalities built into and EMR system can help you properly allocate your resources so that money is being spent as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Of course, these direct cost savings only scratch the surface of the benefits an EMR system can bring to your clinic. Stay tuned over the next couple bog posts as we cover some of the other benefits, noticeable or not.

(Contributed by Ted Barrington)