Physicians Practice - March 2008 - (Page 45)

THE ADMINISTRATOR’S DESK SELECTING AN EMR DON’T BE AFRAID; BE PREPARED B Y S H E L LY K . S C H WA R T Z The physicians in your practice are ready to explore the new frontier of electronic medical records. And you, they assume, are just the person to take them there. Makes perfect sense. What with your business background, limited grasp of IT capabilities, and utter lack of time to devote to another project, who better to analyze the more than 400 different EMR software products available and ferret out which ones will best serve the needs of your clinical and administrative staff? physician practices dismantle recently purchased EMRs they were unable to implement on their own — because of improper selection, insufficient staff training, or an unwillingness to change. DON’T GO IT ALONE As the most likely “designated project manager” for your practice’s EMR transition, you play the most pivotal role in helping to ensure that your business selects an appropriate system and implements it successfully. That you inside knowledge of how the clinical team interacts on a daily basis — to help you. “You may not have clinical expertise, and that makes it harder to anticipate the potential of what some of these EMR systems can do for a practice,” says Nelson. DO YOUR HOMEWORK PAVE THE WAY Address fears about new technology by explaining to staff their new roles before implementation. “Choosing an EMR vendor is a career-deﬁning decision,” says Sue Hertlein, senior consultant for The Coker Group, an Atlanta-based healthcare consulting ﬁrm. “Let’s face it, whether you are an administrator or a physician, your job is to provide quality service to patients. You may not have any experience in healthcare IT at all. It can be very daunting, even for an expert.” Oh, and no added pressure, but choosing the wrong EMR can drive your practice into a ﬁnancial — and administrative — tailspin. More than 30 percent of The Coker Group’s consulting business is devoted to helping WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM requires input from others throughout the process, says technology consultant Rosemarie Nelson. “You can’t be the one to choose,” she says. “But you do want to make sure the group makes a good decision.” Practice administrators who select and implement EMRs without soliciting feedback from their higher-ups often get pushback from clinical staff after implementation. “They’ll say, ‘Well, you picked this one, not us,’ and then you have a big problem,” says Nelson. So appoint a responsible medical assistant, nurse, or lab technician — anyone who can give Of course, you’ll want to research the pros and cons of each product you are considering and then coordinate demonstrations from the vendors of your top choices. “Read as much as possible from unbiased sources,” suggests Hertlein. “Talk to your peers who have already implemented an EMR. … Ask them what they learned, what they did that was right, and what part has been an absolute nightmare.” Once you’ve narrowed your ﬁeld of potential vendors even more, visit several practices within your specialty that are already using those products, and ask them how it’s going. “Talk to the people actually using the software, not just the physicians,” suggests Hertlein. “Ask them if they were able to stay on deadline and on budget.” And don’t forget that part of your role is also to steer doctors away from systems that simply do not meet the needs of your specialty, size, or goals. “Practice managers should have a big enough view of the practice [to determine its EMR needs] and also understand what the issues are with some of the vendors,” says Nelson. “Doctors may get excited about the bells and whistles from one vendor, but they need to be directed so they don’t pick a solution that’s not going to work for them.” MARCH 2008 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | 45 http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physicians Practice - March 2008

Physicians Practice - March 2008 Contents The Bigger Picture: Try a Little Tenderness Second Opinion Letters Physicians Practice Pearls: The Value of First Impressions Noteworthy Cover Story: Your Complete Guide to Patient Service Billings & Collections: Rules to Code By The Administrators Desk: Selecting an EMR Technology: Learn to Love Your Nerd Ask The Experts Coding The Guide The Tech Doctor: All About Blogs The Great Practice Makeover: When Bad Things Happen to Good Practices Start It Up - NEW! The Law: Audits 101 In Practice: Do As I Say... Pretty Please? Healthonomics: Handling the Changes Wrought by Medicare D Classifieds Advertiser Index

Physicians Practice - March 2008

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