Welcome to EMR and HIPAA

As I was reading through some information on EMR’s and their ability to schedule appointments I ran accross an idea that was just too good to not post. In fact, I wondered why this hadn’t been implemented by my EMR. An email tomorrow will hopefully create a nice enhancement request.

Why doesn’t your EMR display how long the patient has been waiting. In fact, it could show how long the patient has been waiting since he/she got there or even since the nurse finished with the patient. I know that no one likes waiting in the waiting room or in the exam room for someone to finally help you.

This should be very simple. In fact, with my current EMR this should be a very simple thing to implement. All of the data is there since we check the patient in when they arrive and the doctor could check the clock and figure out how long they’ve been waiting. Great, but why should the doctor have to find a clock and calculate it themselves. A nice visual indication would be nice for them to know how far behind they are at a glance.

Could this be done without computers and EMR? I think not!!

This issue could be debated extensively and so that is why I decided to post a few ideas on why an EMR system is more secure and more reliable and just downright better than those paper charts. Really I hope that it is somewhat of a pros and cons and could expand into all sorts of areas. We could also talk for hours about implementing an EMR and the difficulties of EMR in that respect, but putting that aside I want to just look at why EMR is better than a paper chart. I’m starting this list by taking these points from this webpage.

-Entire chart gets passed to multiple doctors, nurses, techs, therapists, dietitians, etc.
This could also be the case with an electronic record, but an electronic mark would be left by each person that viewed and more importantly changed the record.
-Lost charts destroyed in a natural disaster(ie. Katrina)
Still possible with an EMR, but not with a good off site backup. Also, how hard is it to carry a DVD with you as opposed to a room full of paper charts.
-Paper Charts spread disease
A keyboard could also carry similar diseases, but a keyboard could easily be wiped down with alcohol. Paper charts can’t be cleaned or sanitized in any way.

This is just a start. Look for more posts to come on the pros and cons. I think this might turn into a full fledge page of it’s own.