Is a Paperless Medical Practice Really Possible?

Do you have a clear understanding of your medical practice's goals for using an electronic medical records system? You should know the answer to this question before setting out on a change to an EMR system.

Does your practice hope to become more efficient in operations?

Are you preparing to implement 'pay for performance' standards and reviews?

Do you anticipate electronic medical records to be the standard of the future and want to prepare in advance?

Are you striving to create a medical practice which is effectively paperless?

Does this type of project even seem viable for your office?

When deciding to make the move to an electronic office from a paper-based record-keeping system, one primary challenge you may face is deciding what to do with the paper forms which are currently being used at the practice. Some forms are a requirement of federal and state agencies - some others are just in practical use at the practice on a day-to-day basis.

We have so many forms in use at our practice, we don't even really know the exact number of them. By compiling these paper forms in a binder, we are able to do an inventory and begin evaluations of which of these forms are really necessary for operations, which are infrequently used and may be discontinued, and which are gathering duplicate information and can be integrated elsewhere.

Our top goal in the change to EMR was to include as much documentation as possible in the EMR system. To do this, many of the forms had to be changed into templates which we can store in electronic format. You will have to choose the forms which should be incorporated into the EMR system, and deduce until identifying those forms which must be filled out on paper. Creating custom templates can be a costly and time-intensive project.

To create the templates, paper forms should be scanned into the EMR system, then saved and stored as images. There is a downside to this kind of scanning solution, however - that is, the information which is stored this way has limited uses. Data which is stored in this read-only format cannot be made easily accessible for data mining and research. However, some medical practices which are operate on EMR systems have already learned that a certain number of paper forms remain important elements in the overall operations at a practice, even if they are not stored but shredded at the end of each work day.

The use of e-Prescriptions is one great way to eliminate the amount of paperwork at your practice without switching over to a full EMR system. When using this method, prescriptions may be sent to the patient's pharmacy electronically, without the necessity for the doctors to search around the office for a prescriptions writing pad and fill it out manually.

Also be sure to consider the communication styles between practitioners; many of these professionals will not be ready for an electronic medical records system in the near future. Some estimates state that approximately seven to ten percent of medical practices are using EMR at the office right now. Some of these systems are able to create a document from the clinical examination, then either: print them out and send by post; or, convert them to digital format and transmit to a referring doctor by fax. Keep in mind that the legal guidelines for transmitting medical data by email have become increasingly complicated; an entire other article would be necessary in order to properly discuss these considerations.

If you decide to scan all of your paper records into an electronic format, still you may not succeed at completely eliminating the use of paper forms at your practice. Some paper-based forms must be kept for legal and regulatory compliance. So, it may not quite be time to sell all your file cabinets quite yet. It could be a long time before we see the day when all medical documentation is generated and stored in electronic format.