When Is The Right Time To Convert Your EHR & Practice Management System?

With over 890,000 professionally active physicians and 321.4 million people located in the United States, there is a massive amount of personalized health care data floating around. Electronic health records (EHR) allow healthcare organizations to maintain patient data in a coordinated and organized manner that is more efficient and easily accessible than paper charts.

One of the biggest challenges that the healthcare industry is currently facing is the phasing out of legacy systems. Many providers are faced with migrating from older healthcare technology systems to more up-to-date and sophisticated systems. Healthcare practices must demonstrate that providers are “meaningfully using” newer EHR technologies by having to meet certain government requirements. Unfortunately, many of the existing systems are unable to meet these new guidelines without scarifying customer value and innovation.

In order for providers to remain successful and to fully leverage their EHR technologies, providers need to survey the current EHR landscape to identify new solutions that not only meet meaningful use requirements — but also put patients first without sacrificing efficiency.

Evaluate Your Situation

The first step for any conversion is to determine the needs of your practice and figure out how an EHR system fits best into your practice. It’s important to look at a solution that is innovative and focused on creating valuable tools and assets. If you find yourself using an older system from a company struggling to stay afloat, it’s probably time to convert.

Ask your providers valuable questions to understand the goals and value the practice wants out of a new system. Using this information, you’ll have a better understanding going into the research phase.

Be Realistic

The next step once you’ve determined a new system is necessary is to realistically evaluate which information and data should be transferred to the new system. It’s essential to maintain the integrity of patient data during the conversion in order to capture a patient’s whole history. If there are pieces missing from a patient’s chart, it can be difficult for a provider to accurately provide a diagnosis.

Keep in mind that more often than not, it’s not free to transfer information over from a legacy system. Now is the time to think through which information can be stored on the practice’s server versus in the new EHR — and which information can be deleted. If you’re having trouble determining the value of transitioning over to a newer EHR organizing system, ask yourself how much you’re willing to spend on that piece of info to be converted over.

Once you have a better understanding of the practice’s needs and the amount of data that you’ll transfer, you can explore new EHR systems. Research is important to determine which system is going to work best in your practice. Not all systems are created equal.

ChartLogic Can Help

Switching platforms isn’t always an easy process, but ChartLogic is the partner that can help you through the process. We have the software, people, and processes to make the conversion easier and help keep your practice not miss a beat. In today’s constantly evolving healthcare landscape, we offer a full ambulatory EHR suite, including electronic medical record (EMR), practice management, e-Rx and patient portal, as well as complete medical billing services.

As one of the first EMRs in the industry, ours has been used by thousands of providers thanks to its efficient charting and easy-to-use technology. The EMR system captures the clinical encounter electronically without making you change your workflow, which is why so many have trusted ChartLogic with their paperless office needs.

We understand that conversions aren’t always enjoyable or easy to preform. If you need help determining what is a realistic goal and what isn’t, we offer consultations with one of our ChartLogic Implementation experts, just click here!