Guide to Picking the Right EMR Vendor for Your Medical Practice
After the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of hospitals are facing issues of workflow disruptions, higher patient volumes, and data and reporting requirements that are not fulfilled by the previous EMR vendors, and a lot of Clinics and Hospitals are looking for better EMR vendors.
So how are you going to choose the right EMR vendor? Every hospital should have a checklist; an assessment plan that looks at what you need, what needs to be done, and how to negotiate to ensure the correct outcome for the patient demographic, clinicians, and company.
Here are some of the important steps to follow in order to choose the right EMR vendor:
Consider your requirements
The first important step is to define your current needs. You should also consider your future needs as the Hospital business grows. Create a list of the requirements for EMR applications depending on your needs. Depending on a variety of factors, your list can include features such as accessibility on various devices, minimal maintenance, the ability to manage the schedules of your doctors, and various other factors. Also, map the ideal practice workflow and the normal patient visit flow to decide how potential EMR software could support your workflow instead of hindering it.
It is necessary to include all doctors and staff in the office in the creation of this list, meaning that all facets of the profession have been addressed. However, the decision should be made by the practitioner, not by the back-office or IT staff. The judgment involves leadership and knowledge of the medical requirements.
Analyze your budget
Purchasing and implementing an EMR framework into the process can be expensive and even inefficient in many cases. However, going for a cloud-based solution can be an inspiring choice. With no downloads and absolutely no hardware involved, the implementation of EMR with HaleMind is absolutely seamless. Not only this, our team of technology professionals has created the platform robust and responsive, allowing your whole team to access the platform from web browsers with internet speeds of a mobile 3G/4G — making EMR/EHR implementation a high ROI decision.
System architecture
While selecting the right EMR vendor, it is important to understand the requirements in terms of the needed system architecture. As discussed above, there are options such as On-Premise and SaaS. In terms of system architecture, going for a SaaS solution is going to be a better decision as the hardware requirements are non-existing, and hence the investment-effort quotient needed with SaaS is low.
As we all know, on-premise solutions involve hardware components that are not very easy to update. Hence, the workflows and features in these on-premise solutions tend to be outdated. The updates in these legacy systems are planned and executed on a yearly basis, given the cumbersome nature of the process involved in it.
With a cloud-based solution, however, these updates are made on a monthly/quarterly basis — helping you to keep your staff ready for the future. Not only this, on-premise solutions need regular maintenance and visits by the technical team — often disrupting your daily clinic operations. On the other hand, SaaS based EMR solutions don’t need these system maintenance sessions in the first place since these cloud-based systems get updated continuously on their own.
Request for a demo
Make sure to inquire about a demo to see how some things work. Often, note to include the teammates in the demo review. You don’t want to test a tech demo on the same day the salesperson can contact you. Instead, always set a date for this. This gives you time to plan to find the relevant items you’re searching for in the EMR system for medical records.
Don’t encourage the salesperson to concentrate on showing their goods in the best way possible. Instead, they’re going to teach you how their EMR software suits your particular needs. The easiest way to achieve this is to provide a demo script of at least five main steps that the app can automate.
Look at the features
It is important to check the functionality of the EMR system. You want to ensure that all the necessary functions are in order to ensure adequate record keeping. Your staff should be able to access patient information without any issues while ensuring fool-proof security of patient data and information.
One of the most important features to seek would be the option to customize the EMR platform for each clinic and hospital. Apart from this, other features such as the patient portal and analytics suite to stay abreast with various aspects of the practice are crucial.
A clear example of this is real-time record-keeping and recording. This helps all of the employees to access the latest up-to-date details about the patient. Project management functions, such as signing notes, reports, and patient messages, are also important to the practice.
After-sales support
This is one of the biggest factors that you must consider while picking the right EMR solution for your practice. From technical executives being available to assistance by the vendor in various aspects related to the EMR, assess everything that the vendor is going to provide.
For instance, we have created and added self-help videos for each and every feature in HaleMind’s EMR solution. By doing this, we have empowered the customers to take control and resolve most of their problems without any dependence or wasting any time. Not only this, we have ensured premier ease-of-using with our platform — making EMR use as simple as opening Facebook!
Should the customers need help, we have a team of proactive executives that are available both online and offline.
If your practice is open after regular office hours, you can require overnight or weekend help. You will also require on-site support instead of help from a call center. Finally, consider the magnitude of the assistance you will get. Instead of only offering technical assistance, you might like extra support downloading new features and enhancements and repairing glitches. Before buying from a single EMR seller, make sure to pose these questions.
Expectations of patients and other stakeholders in the healthcare industry is always rising, making your investments in the EMR system a crucial aspect of your clinic. Take the time to compare different EMR vendors when you are looking for the best EMR system.
Have any questions about EMR/EHR? Being the provider of industry-leading EMR solutions, HaleMind is well-positioned to help you with any queries you might have. Feel free to get in touch with us!
