The Case for Paperless EMR

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) February 3, 2009 -- Over 40 years, the health care industry has been paper based. Physicians have been required to study on paper, track patients on paper, prescribe on paper and do all business transactions on paper.

An average of 195,000 people in the USA died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in 2007.

From 2004 through 2006, patient safety errors resulted in 238,337 potentially preventable deaths of U.S. Medicare patients and cost the Medicare program $8.8 billion, according to the fifth annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study.

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The Case for Paperless EMR

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Medical errors carry a high financial cost. The IOM report estimates that medical errors cost the Nation approximately $37.6 billion each year; about $17 billion of those costs are associated with preventable errors. About half of the expenditures for preventable medical errors are for direct health care costs.

Out of the 2.2 trillion dollars spent in health care each year, 700 million is spent on waste "paper" and cleaning up mistakes from paper.

In 2007, 98,000 medical deaths were contributed to medical errors.

There were over 7,000 prescription errors reporting in 2007. According to the groundbreaking 2003 medical report Death by Medicine, by Drs. Gary Null, Carolyn Dean, Martin Feldman, Debora Rasio and Dorothy Smith, 783,936 people in the United States die every year from conventional medicine mistakes. That's the equivalent of six jumbo jet crashes a day for an entire year.

Malpractice insurance is at its highest, turning once success medical practices into a challenging business.

Benefits of Using an EMR or EHR Solution

Legibility of Notes - No more dealing with various handwriting styles since notes are typed.

Accessibility of Charts - Indexed and easily searchable by multiple identifiers. No more searching the entire clinic for a lost paper chart.

Transcription Costs Savings - Many users have been able to save on transcription costs by implementing an EMR.

Space Savings - Many people are able to save space where they’d normally be storing shelves and shelves of paper charts.

Eliminate Staff - This almost never happens immediately. Usually this happens through natural turnover of employees and usually occurs with your front desk or medical records staff.

Eligibility for Pay-for-performance - It could take two years or more for you to implement an EHR and implement a meaningful quality improvement mechanism that would lead to your receiving payments from these programs.

New Physician Recruitment - Many new physicians are looking for practices that use an EHR and will only work for an organization that uses an EHR.

Multiple Users Use a Chart Simultaneously - Most EMR programs support multiple users accessing a chart at the same time. Many even allow multiple people to chart notes at the same time also.

Lab Results Returned Automatically - This depends on a lab interface, but is more reliable and integrated with the care given.

X-Ray Results Returned Automatically - This also depends on a X-ray interface, but has the same possible benefits of a lab interface.

Save a Tree and the Environment - You won’t eliminate your use of paper, but you can significantly reduce the amount of paper/charts you use in your practice.

Electronic Prescriptions - Scripts sent electronically or printed out avoid problems of legibility by the pharmacy receiving the script.

Spell check - Many EMR software includes a spell check and often even include a medical dictionary.

Disaster Recovery - Depending on your EMR backup schedule, you can store a copy of your data in multiple locations for better disaster recovery. Plus, in an emergency you could carry a backup of your data with you. Think about how you’d carry a room full of charts with you in an emergency.

Drug to Drug Interaction Checking - Most EMR provide a database of Drug to Drug interactions when writing a prescription.

Drug to Allergy Interaction Checking - Most EMR provide a database of Drug to Allergy Interaction checking when writing a prescription.

Quality of Care – Most EMR solution provide a patient portal and direct communication with the doctors and specialists.

Increased Efficiency – Better decisions made quicker.

Improved Claim Submission Process – E&M coding and auto submission of superbills and medical billing documents enable medical practices to get paid more, faster.

Why PrognoCIS EMR?

PrognoCIS EMR is your low cost alternative to high priced EMR solutions. All of the functionality at a fraction of the cost.

Why Level Eight Systems

10 years of medical experience put us at the top of the list for implementing EMR on-time and on-budget. With additional services for hardware and document imaging, Level Eight Systems is the best choice for the PrognoCIS EMR solution.

PrognoCIS is available as a client / server, running inside your practice, or as a subscription based model, available over the internet.

Sources:
www.ahrq.go
www.washingtonpost.com
www.medicalnewstoday.com
www.emrandhipaa.com
www.level8systems.com
www.b1expert.com
www.emrexperts.com

More information can be found online at http://www.level8systems.com

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