A short while ago, I completed a blog article for emrandehr.com, a blog that I began contributing to with my friend John Lynn. I met John at Practice Fusion Connect 2010 while he was interviewing my Practice Manager, Ken Harrington, about the benefits that an EHR system brought to our practice in DC. For John’s blog, I wrote an entry called “Misconceptions of using an EHR system as a provider” in which I discussed what EHR systems cannot necessarily fix in practice of medicine in a modern era. But later I thought about looking at the upsides of EHR systems that I absolutely love. Here are a few.
Conception #1. “You really get to have the information at your fingertips anywhere you are. Yay!”
The Internet, and web-based technology, aren’t going away, and software and hardware designers seem to become more and more adept at inventing new ways for us to enjoy using them every day. I can now be anywhere in the WORLD and get to my patients’ records instantaneously. Furthermore, I can send notes back to my staff at home base and ask them to do this or that. I’m no longer cut off when I’m out of town, and so I don’t have a hundred messages to wade through when I return.
Conception #2. “You really can click a few buttons and can get 90% of scripts to the pharmacy. Awesome!”
Maybe one day mail order pharmacies like Walgreens and Medco will come out of their caves and get on board with electronic prescribing. (If someone can correct me here, I’d love it.) It would certainly make it much easier to send patients’ prescriptions faster. But for the time being, I’m glad to see that most of my scripts can be zipped off this way. Because of this, I won’t have to buy replacements for my paper script pads for years. And all the better if an EMR system figures out a payment model in which doctors don’t have to pay for this ability.
Conception #3. “You really never lose a file. Unbelievable!”
So far, I’ve been using personal EMR systems since December 2009, and I have yet to be disappointed with file loss. Say goodbye to the days of stressing out about a lost patient chart. Gone are the days of finding a hard sought-after patient file left on the desk corner of a coworker who didn’t remember to put it back after using it.
Conception #4. “You really can read everything anyone has ever written. Can it really be so?!”
Well no, that one won’t be true until all providers are using good electronic medical records and leave paper behind as a relic of the past. But we’re making good progress on this by having excellent systems like Practice Fusion.
– Dr. West
Dr. West is an endocrinologist in private practice in Washington, DC. He completed fellowship training in Endocrinology and Metabolism at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. West opened The Washington Endocrine Clinic, PLLC, as a solo practice in 2009.
