Hire an EHR expert to manage workflow complexities!
For most physicians EHRs are the monster under the bed they were scared of as children. The amount of data fodder an EHR needs to function has reduced physicians into an army of data entry professionals. Every day at work, becomes one long process of, learning, unlearning, relearning and feeding data into a system that is becoming more difficult to handle by the day…
Dangerous learning curves ahead!
One reason, why physicians hate their EHR, with a vengeance is that, learning the ropes of an electronic medical record is tiresome and frustrating. There are tripwires and smoky mirrors everywhere. The worst part of working with an EHR is that it eats up large chunks of time that could have been spent on interacting with patients.
According to a survey by the MPI group as many as 67% of physicians were planning to switch to another system. About 63% of doctors wouldn’t choose the same system again if given a chance! What could be the reason for such high levels of physician dissatisfaction? Is it because EHRs are not designed to be handled by physicians? Or are doctors unable to work efficiently with their EHRs?
Designed for whom?
Can a bunch of template designers truly understand what a physician truly wants? There is a huge dissonance between the everyday workflow of medical practices and the template structure of EHRs. They are rigid, demand huge amounts of unwanted or repetitive data and make pulling out pertinent information a herculean task.
It has become a tug of war between physicians and EHR vendors as worried policy makers watch over the chaos that a well-meant change can bring.
Physicians are not ready as yet…
Any change can bring about widespread distrust and confusion. Throw in a completely new model of working; you have a disaster waiting to happen. Unwilling or reluctant physicians are partly to blame for the entire digitizing effort becoming a fiasco.
A lasting solution!
Move over phoney experts! There are several EHR experts who can help physicians resolve technical issues, come up with customization plans and help physicians understand complicated EHR architectures. Despite the bickering and disagreements a huge number of medical practices are dependent on EHRs to store, access and transmit vital medical information.
To be able to work more effectively with their EHRs, physicians will have to hire an EMR expert to handle hardware and software snags. There are several remote EHR tech support consultants who can finally bridge the divide between physicians and their EHRs…
