Electronic medical records (EMR) technology has substantially improved healthcare workflows. It has enabled medical care providers to conveniently access patients’ entire medical histories, including lab tests, current and previous diagnoses, and treatment regimens.
But implementing electronic medical records systems comes with its own set of challenges. Managing healthcare IT systems and EMR, in particular, can be incredibly complex, and solving the challenges related to these cost a lot of time and money.
As a healthcare IT solutions provider, we’ve helped hospitals, family medicine practices, specialized treatment centers, physical medicine and rehabilitation centers, and other healthcare practices overcome EMR implementation and management challenges while reaping the benefits of EMR automation.
Related reading: Save money with these 5 electronic medical record automation tips
Microsoft 365 has been essential to overcoming those EMR challenges. It has enabled healthcare professionals to provide high-quality care with tools that foster collaboration and communication.
Here are some of the most common EMR challenges that Microsoft 365 addresses.
5 EMR challenges that Microsoft 365 can solve
Properly setting up an EMR system and ensuring it works smoothly can be daunting, and healthcare providers will find these EMR management challenges familiar.
1. Staff resistance
Healthcare staff may be reluctant to abandon old systems and shift to a digitized one. They may also resist undergoing training for new systems, as doing so will entail extra time and effort, especially at a time when many care providers are operating at full capacity.
This resistance may come in the form of your staff continuing to use old systems instead of embracing new technologies, such as by writing down patient information on old forms and not using newly installed EMR systems.
Information overload may also be a source of complaint and frustration, and be cited as a cause of burnout. Microsoft 365 eases these concerns by improving operational efficiencies and making it easier for staff to seamlessly transition to new workflows.
For instance, Microsoft Teams makes day-to-day operations more efficient by providing ready access to comprehensive patient information. This would afford medical staff unparalleled convenience, as they can easily look up or record a patient's current status into the EMR system.
Cloud-based solutions that are fully integrated into Microsoft Office 365 can automatically process large volumes of documents. These platforms offer a host of other benefits such as form recognition with metadata extraction and workflow integration, and make compliance easy by centralizing your document storage systems.
A strategic plan is crucial to the success of EMR implementation. And with a solid strategy, it's easier to get your team on board. Assure your team that successfully adopting an EMR-based system eventually reduces the amount of time they spend on tedious tasks, ease communication across care teams, and improve job satisfaction in the long term.
2. Lack of clear communication
Many of the bottlenecks that hurt healthcare productivity stem from organizations’ lack of a communication system that lets clinicians and/or administrative staff efficiently deliver critical information to relevant parties. This, in turn, negatively affects quality of care. Additionally, with the growing volume of patient data and increasingly stringent compliance rules, there’s plenty of opportunities for healthcare providers to mess up.
Microsoft 365 helps streamline communication and collaboration. Via Microsoft Teams, an all-in-one chat, meeting, and video conferencing hub, team members benefit from vastly reduced collaboration challenges. It offers real-time communication and coordinates patient care, among other benefits.
Here are some of its most recent functions:
- Priority notifications – In periods between 2 and 20 minutes, this feature notifies recipients of urgent messages on their devices until the recipient replies.
- Message delegation – This lets users delegate messages they can’t attend to because they’re busy.
- Shifts – This is a smart camera feature that securely annotates images, which helps ensure that work-related images don’t get stored in staff’s devices.
3. Healthcare data interoperability challenges
Interoperability pertains to systems working harmoniously and seamlessly. In the healthcare sector, that means data must be immediately and seamlessly transferred from one system to the next. Sadly, that isn’t the case in many healthcare practices.
Patients with a condition that requires the expertise of many care providers would generate large volumes of information. And for carers (which may include surgeons, nurses, and specialists) to work efficiently, they need an interoperable system that facilitates the transfer of complete patient data from one source to another.
To illustrate, a hospital must be able to retrieve data coming from a nursing home and other outside resources into their EMR system with ease. This may seem like an insurmountable obstacle to many hospitals, but with Microsoft 365 platforms, it doesn’t have to be.
Microsoft Teams alleviates such pain points in these areas through Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), which does extremely practical things such as allow doctors to access patient data, conduct a video conference, chat with colleagues, and more without having to use disparate applications and systems.
4. Data privacy concerns
Data privacy remains a primary concern for healthcare professionals. When undertaking an EMR implementation project, your practice must enact measures concerning patient data privacy that fully complies with the mandates of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).
This is why medical practices need secure messaging and collaboration tools to uphold strict data privacy standards. Luckily for hospitals and medical practices, Microsoft Teams is HIPAA compliant and is a secure platform to store and share electronic protected health information (ePHI).
5. High costs
Implementing an EMR system and making sure it runs smoothly entails costs. Organizations should expect to spend between $15,000 and $70,000 to implement EMR. However, expenses depend on whether you choose an on-site deployment or a Software-as-a-Service EMR deployment (web-based deployment); the former tends to cost more.
EMR implementation costs include:
- Hardware – includes computers, laptops, servers, printers, etc.
- EMR software – covers application upgrades and relevant lab modules
Implementation assistance – includes costs for hiring an IT contractor, electrician, consultant, and other support contractors - Training – supports the growth of your staff, including clinicians, nurses, and administrative staff
- Maintenance – includes license maintenance, continued staff training, support costs, additional overhead costs, and other unplanned expenses
But while implementing EMR comes with a cost, a healthcare practice that successfully implements it will eventually reap the benefits via revenue growth. Physicians could increase the number of patients they’re seeing per day. And with a properly set-up EMR system and an adequately trained workforce, carers would be freed of administrative burdens, become more proficient in using new systems, and attend to more patients.
And one EMR challenge that it can’t solve…
While Microsoft 365 can solve the above EMR problems, it remains a challenge for healthcare professionals to ensure their EMR system works consistently and according to their unique workflow requirements. The fact is that an EMR system can’t fully function without a dedicated team handling it. That is why…
You need to work with EMR experts
IT professionals can simplify complex EMR implementation processes. Healthcare IT pros like Solution Partner can help deploy EMR systems efficiently and anticipate roadblocks in the future. They can help integrate electronic health data systems into your systems to enhance care coordination and see to it that all necessary patient data are available to doctors when making diagnoses and treating patients.
Ultimately, it is the goal of every healthcare IT solutions provider to improve workflows by empowering clinicians to work better using systems that are straightforward and simple while improving communication.
All healthcare providers have faced these EMR challenges at some point in their operations. Solution Partner is the EMR expert you need to address such hurdles for your medical practice in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, and surrounding areas. To outsource EMR management to Solution Partner’s experts, schedule a free consultation or call 623-584-6993.
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