Implementing EMR to Improve Workflow

Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems, in their broadest iterations, can support compliance with practice guidelines and facilitate workflow through computer-aided documentation, prescription writing, and ordering tests. In the exponentially growing field of vendors developing EMR solutions, the options can be overwhelming.

Recent data suggests that approximately twenty-five percent of physicians use EMRs. Less than ten percent use systems that provide comprehensive patient information; demographics, notes, histories, and laboratory findings in a single view.

Factors that seem to limit widespread adoption of EMRs include administrative hurdles which limit usability. More complex systems, while offering a broader architecture and more applications for distinct components of medical records (such as one application for medical notes and another for imaging studies), may be perceived as unwieldly secondary to a steep learning curve.

Healthcare practitioners benefit from user-friendly systems that provide access to clinical information without requiring intensive computing expertise. Applications which easily communicate within a system can support user workflow across tasks; such as examining an imaging study and then ordering a test. In particular, systems that enable aggregatino of information to create a single access point for complete patient information support user needs. See reporting in HHN Most Wired.

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