Mobile EHR Software: Is it Right For You?

For every half-hour spent on patient exams, doctors spend about an hour organizing, editing, and reviewing the patient’s associated EHR documentation. That effectively makes the average doctor’s day twice as long as it should be. We got to wondering, “What would doctors be able to do if maintaining records wasn’t a factor?”

Here’s what we came up with:

The 3 Most Important Questions When Considering Mobile EHR Software

Healthcare providers face the challenge of providing personalized care while performing the necessary task of EHR data entry. However, the growth of mobile devices as “data entry tools” is creating a new opportunity for practices. The following three questions will explore some of the benefits of mobile EHR and help you determine whether a mobile EHR app is right for you and your practice.

1) Do you experience disorganization with your patient records?

To answer this question, let’s define what “organization” can include. The first thing that might come to your mind thinking about the organization of your healthcare facility is whether your patient record information is easy to find. While this is part of an organization, it is not everything. Having good organization at your practice means that in addition to information being easy to find, it is also accurate, free of error, and easy to read and understand by anyone who comes across it. This also includes the communication that happens between patient check-in, the exam room, the pharmacy, the lab, and your EHR system. Disorganization is not just an inconvenience but has unintended consequences that lead to major errors, potentially endangering your patients and decreasing the quality of care at your practice.

If you are experiencing miscommunication at your practice, or find it difficult to understand what happened during an appointment, mobile EHR could be the solution for you. It streamlines the documentation process of your EHR, so information can be easily found and understood, free of error. Having a user-friendly interface makes your EHR easier to navigate, improving your efficiency. In addition, it provides you with cross-department mobilization to transfer information from physicians to lab technicians, to pharmacists, and others who need that information in order to best serve your patients.

2) Are the doctors at your practice facing physician burnout?

Physician burnout has become one of the biggest challenges facing healthcare practices today and can cause symptoms such as exhaustion, depersonalization, and cynicism. Much of physician burnout is believed to be from long work hours due to the inefficiency of EHR systems. The documentation process is lengthy and prone to human errors, especially if physicians are only able to work on documentation hours after an appointment took place. Not only does the lengthy EHR documentation process impact the lives of physicians, but it is having a negative impact on the productivity of healthcare practices as well.

Making your EHR system mobile allows physicians to document details of patient interactions and needs throughout the day instead of at the end of the day. Mobile EHR documentation is actually integrated into the appointment, via voice technology, rather than being a separate task, which saves your practice both time and money. Your physicians can expect to finish their documentation work about 33% faster, and your practice can save approximately $6,000 after just one week of use.

3) Are you seeing a decrease in patient satisfaction or retention?

In addition to extensive amounts of EHR documentation, or perhaps because of it, the screen has become a barrier between physicians and their patients. More often than not, physicians are facing a screen during an exam to record notes and details rather than facing the patient (who can be feeling quite vulnerable at the time). This is causing patient engagement to decrease, and patient satisfaction and retention are quick to follow.

When you use a mobile device, you can face the patient more easily, sit closer to them, or gesture to them to enhance communication. Providing your patients with more eye contact is key to letting them know you are listening and that they have your full attention. Mobile EHR apps help to eliminate the screen barrier that exists in the exam room, bring back engagement with your patients, and ease the communication that you have with them.

If you answered “yes” to any of these three questions, mobile EHR could be the solution for you. A mobile EHR app can help you to streamline documentation and communication, reduce physician burnout, and bring your focus back to what matters: your patients.