EMR and the smaller office.

Below is an excerpt from an article I found about EMR (electronic medical records). This is a pretty complex issue all physicians are faced with. Most of what we read about with respect to EMR are related to the hospital environment and is now beginning to enter the area of small to medium-sized private practices. One of the big concerns surrounding the issue of EMR is interoperability, which means how do we get millions of patient records online in a format that any medical practitioner can access? Also, most of the EMR will be formatted as point and click for services, drugs and recommendations provided to patients. The dilemma that smaller offices are facing is price versus ROI (return on investment) and as you can see below some of the costs of converting to EMR are pretty steep. However, for the smaller practice they really do not have to spend $30,000 just for the hardware and the practitioner need only to invest in a digital dictation machine and some additional CRTs.

We have developed an online transcription company geared for the smaller offices that are new to the EMR world and provide a simple easy to use software system that will store your records in a format that is currently universally accepted by most PC-based computer systems. As a small office we believe there is no reason to spend thousands of dollars for a software system that is loaded with bells and whistles you may never need to use, but rather we feel that basic storage and recall of patients records can save your office in areas of paper costs and labor while keeping you abreast of the current trend to have EMR. So, read below then pay us a visit . We think as a small to medium-sized business you will be surprised to learn how inexpensive it can really be.

“Southwest Medical Associates, a 250-physician group affiliated with Nevada’s largest private health insurer, has been paperless since 2008 after a four-year, $5 million EMR implementation, and has already recouped the expense in drug savings alone and likely prevented many errors.

The process, of course, is much more difficult for a small, low-margin, primary-care practice like that of Dr. Tony Alamo (if that’s not a name made for Vegas, I don’t know what is). His three-physician practice saved on software by agreeing to test a system being developed by a cardiologist friend, but still spent $30,000 on hardware, the Sun reports. Alamo, 45, has had to overcome 20 years of practicing with paper charts, a process he calls “cumbersome” and “difficult,” but still refers to it as “my comfort zone.” Now, he pulls up records on a computer and shares the information with patients on monitors in each exam room.”

Article Source : http://www.aonemt.com/blog/?p=29