5 Ways Your EHR Will Improve Patient Satisfaction

HIT (health information technology) has the potency to transform how you run your practice, provide healthcare and handle patients. With this power, doctors are turning to EHR technology to manage the huge amount of information they must collect, record, store, process and retrieve. EHR technology has become the central hub upon which a successful practice can be built. In this article, we look at five ways you can use your EHR to improve patient satisfaction.

Reduce Memory-Based Treatments

Medicine has always been a memory-based industry. The best doctors are the ones with the highest recollection prowess – or the best patient notes. With an EHR, you can simply call up a patient record. With all the information readily available in one place, you’ll be able to make better, more accurate diagnoses and deliver more effective treatments. 

Handwritten Prescription Risk

Doctors are notorious for having poor handwriting. This may or may not be true — but the fact remains, it’s easier to misread a handwritten prescription vs. computer printout or e-prescription. Your EHR can help you eliminate handwritten prescriptions altogether, ensuring your patients do not possibly get the wrong medication.

Quick Emergency Response

Consider a scenario where your patient becomes ill or involved in an accident in a far-away location. The old-fashioned way to handle this would be for the emergency provider to get on the phone with the patient’s primary care doctor for information about the patient’s health history. With the right EHR, you can quickly share the patient’s health records with the doctor — and then offer additional support via phone if necessary. This sort of intervention can be done within seconds and may result in a life saved.

Allergies and Adverse Drug Reactions

In a patient’s first visit, you have little idea about their medical history beyond the information provided by the patient. If their primary care provider were to share paper records, it would take days to get the information. With EHR technology, you can get your patient’s allergy and adverse drug reaction information quickly and know what adverse interactions may occur.

Patient Consent

Patient consent is another great functionality your EHR should provide. With consenting features, you can electronically provide your patients with all the information they need concerning proposed treatments. That gives the patient time to go through it, do their own research and then either opt in or request an alternative treatment. Without such a system, your patients are forced to make up their minds with limited information, something they may end up resenting if the treatment does not work out as planned.

Patient satisfaction is a strong gauge of the quality of service that your practice provides.  An effective and well-featured EHR has the power to transform your healthcare services and improve patient care.

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