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The Right People to Implement Electronic Medical Records

Guest post by: Peter Polack

Article Overview: To implment EMR at your practice, you will need to have the right people in place. An implementation team should be formed from several key departments.

The Right People to Implement Electronic Medical Records

It is important to have staff involvement properly implement an electronic medical records system properly. No single person can realize this job single-handedly, no matter how skilled they are.

Staff members will be aware that a new EPM system will have a sweeping effect on billing and scheduling. They will understand the risks that they are up against, and may feel pressure. The administrators should understand the concerns employees will raise when they discuss a new system. At times we experienced resistance from staff.

A group of power-users should be created. These people should be the first ones trained on aspects of the new system, who then take the example to the rest of the staff. These power-users should come from a variety of areas:

1) Information Technology

2) Administration

3) Office Staff

4) Clinical

5) Front Desk

6) Compliance

In order for the new system to succeed, this committee must take charge of the project. Our practice formed a committee which could hold meetings as it saw fit. This group of people had taken the project from the very beginning, and some put in evenings and weekends as they had the power of decision-making and the responsibilities that come with it. Confidence in individuals and the group gradually grew.

Some key players include:

Front Desk Staff

This groupprovides valuable input from the perspective of the end-users; their tasks include check-in, check-out, posting charges, and scheduling. Their critical job at the present time is the manual posting of the chargeswhen the patient checks out. This will be even more significant in the near-future when the EMR module posts charges automatically in real-time. Having the time to get the bugs out of this process helped support our initial decision to postpone EMR implementation until the staff was acclimated.

Clinical Staff

Although not as vital during this phase of EPM conversion, their participation will be key to the success of the integration of the EMR into the practice in a few months. Nevertheless, it is important to for them to be involved in the early stages of planning; it is helpful for them to have an appreciation for what the non-clinical staff does and how the EMR will fit into the entire scheme of things.

IT Specialist

This person should be involved from the beginning,before choosing the EMR software. If a practice cannot justify the expense of a full-time IT specialist, an IT consultant should be retained. Because we knew that conversion to EMR was just part of our overall strategic plan, we felt we could justify hiring a full-time IT specialist. In fact, due to this person's expertise in software licensing, Internet communications, and hardware networking, the changes that were incorporated into the practice eventually paid for his annual salary.

Coding/Billing Specialist

These employees should also have a voice in the initial software selection process. They helped to minimize the hiccups we experienced when switching from our old EPM system to the new one. On their recommendation, we performed a trial run on the new system prior to completely abandoning our old system. This allowed our IT specialist to verify that the posting and billing were being performed correctly. Someone technically proficient with coding and compliance issues will be invaluable when the EMR module goes live, to prevent under- or over-coding and ensure HIPAA compliance.

The physicians in our practice felt it was essential to empower the EMR committee with the authority to plan and manage the EPM/EMR integration from the beginning. The managing partners meet on a regular basis with our administrator for status reports but oversight of the nuts and bolts of the entire process is handled in a laissez faire manner. As mentioned previously, the success of this project depends in large part on the involvement of all members of the organization.

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Article Tags: bugs, compliance, critical job, decision making, desk staff, electronic medical records, emr, end users, epm, evenings, front desk, information technology, initial decision, medical records system, office staff, power users, present time, resistance, staff involvement, staff members



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