Does your senior care agency still keep paper patient records?
We understand that maintaining a patient’s medical record on paper in most cases is justified only by the fact that many agencies are so accustomed to it and it is very difficult for them to delve into the features of the work of medical information systems. In our practice, we have encountered cases when nurses and caregivers filled out a medical record on paper, and then the administrator transferred the data to the MIS or simply attached a photo of this document to the patient’s electronic record.
This approach has more problems than advantages:
● Handwriting can be eligible to colleagues and scanners alike
● Some pages may be missing or fall out during transit, e.g. letters, lab tests
● Data is not structured, cannot be automatically analyzed for reporting
● It is difficult to track who viewed the information, for example, if there is no audit trail
Obvious benefits of an electronic health record
Now let’s see how the maintenance of electronic medical records by all employees affects the productivity of the senior care agency as a whole.
Improving the quality of medical services
The more information about the patient you enter, collect and process, the higher the quality of service in your clinic will be. You should not only have a detailed electronic patient record embedded, but also set up an MIS that can analyze data from this card and automatically pull it into various marketing, statistical or medical reports.
Unloading caregiver and increasing patient loyalty
How patients feel about your agency depends a lot on how they are treated during their visit. Both administrators and doctors are heavily loaded, so the main task of a medical information system is to relieve them and optimize the workflow.
Increase the satisfaction of your colleagues and improve the patient experience in your clinic with:
● Patient registrations by clicking on the schedule with the time, date and doctor they prefer
● Automatic generation of business performance reports
● Attaching delegated tasks directly to the patient record and appointments
● Eliminate unnecessary workflows and digitize the rest
Business process optimization and cost savings
A good senior care management software decision should be seen as an investment, not a cost. By streamlining all your business processes, you will end up saving far more money than spending on a good health information system. This is because the best tools are those that act as ecosystems rather than standalone products, which is especially important when it comes to tracking and optimizing your promotions.
An electronic medical record has detailed referral system , with it you can:
● Track the results of each patient engagement channel with unique online booking links
● To study at what stages and why potential patients refuse appointments
● Find patients with debts
● Receive calls directly in the platform itself for optimal efficiency at the front desk
Collecting data in one place
Keeping all your patient information in one place is an advantage that is obvious even if you work on paper.
Consolidation in an electronic record of all records and analyzes of a patient means that you can:
● Analyze individual patient progress
● Provide the best quality of patient care services
● Increase clinic efficiency
● Find common trends in your clinic and business practice
● Understand your target audience in order to promoteIntegration of services to optimize workflows
Integration of services to optimize workflows
Effective use of electronic health records requires that your medical information system supports integrations with various clinic partners . That is, the results of analyzes from the partner laboratories of the clinic should be automatically uploaded to the card, there should be a notification system about the readiness of these analyzes, and so on.
Therefore, the health information system should include, or at least be able to integrate with:
● An online booking system that tracks acquisition channels and updates in your diary
● Automatic messaging system for booking confirmation and appointment reminder
● A system with a laboratory for sending requests and receiving examination results
● An end-to-end analytics system, such as Google Analytics, to optimize customer acquisition and the online booking process
