Satisfying Meaningful Use Without Ruining Productivity

As EHRs become more prevalent across the United States, the term “meaningful use” is never far from any physician’s mind. The government has already paid nearly $400 million in incentives to EPs who successfully attested for meaningful use, thereby increasing the motivation to satisfy the government’s initiative to standardize EHR practices. However, conforming to government regulations doesn’t always bode well for the physician.

With the point-and-click EHR favored by ONC, physicians spend too much time doing just that—pointing and clicking. True, physicians may be meeting meaningful use requirements, but it isn’t helping productivity. Patient visits still take about 11 minutes to document, and most physicians still spend hours every night finishing up what they didn’t have time to get to during the day.

So is there a way to demonstrate meaningful use without hurting productivity, or are physicians forced to choose between the two?

Fortunately, physicians can get the benefits of meaningful use while reaping the additional benefits of high productivity. All it takes is a simpler system, one that doesn’t require thousands of points and clicks. Founder of ChartLogic Brad Melis understood this when he and Dr. Bruce Jorgenson, a physician in private practice in Salt Lake City, developed an EMR based primarily on voice recognition. Instead of spending extra time documenting patient visits, physicians can document those visits in as little as 90 seconds, which is obviously much more conducive to productivity.

How has voice recognition helped you in your practice? Does it save you time, or is it just another technological gadget that you have to figure out how to use?