20 Mar EHR Systems: Favorite Time-Saving Features Revealed by the Pros
What do eye care professionals really think about their EHR system? In September of 2018, eye care professionals who stopped by our booth at Vision Expo West completed a survey to reveal their opinions.
Forty-three percent of the survey’s responses came from optometrists, 29 percent were opticians, and the remaining responders work alongside eye care providers using practice management or EHR systems.
At the end of the day, patients don’t want to spend extra time waiting around, according to Software Advice. If they feel like there’s always a long wait, they’re bound to look elsewhere for their eye care needs. To avoid losing patients, eye care professionals need an EHR system that makes patient visits more efficient.
The right optometry EHR system speeds up the flow of documentation during an office visit, so you can view patient history and navigate back and forth during the exam with ease. You need to quickly generate reports, forms, referral letters, or examination summaries, and provide educational material without the wait time.
Optometry EHR and practice management software give you access to exam data analytics and ophthalmic images and reports you need 24/7 from any computer, tablet, or mobile device—without the hassle of searching through paper charts and records.
Let’s dig into the Vision Expo West survey results. What follows are the favorite time-saving features of multiple EHR systems, according to real-world eye care professionals.
Optometry EHR System Time-Saving Features
1. Flexibility and Remote Access
With EHR cloud technology like MaximEyes optometry software, you can quickly pull up a patient’s records on a tablet or mobile device instead of carrying around your laptop or printing out paperwork.
You have the flexibility and security of accessing files from any device while at home or at an out-of-town conference. Even if you have satellite offices in several cities, you and your staff can connect easily because all data is centralized in one location.
2. Quickly Access Patient Records
When you have a repeat patient, you want to take a mental refresher before their visit so you know what was discussed leading up to today’s appointment. An EHR system lets you instantly pull up past exam results so that you’re aware of each patient’s condition when they show up to their visit.
Good eye care EHR software has advanced query capabilities, allowing you to not only view patient records from past office visits but also mine specific images or data from exams with search terms.
3. Add Notes and Navigate with Ease
Your EHR software should replace the use of physical paperwork seamlessly. EHR software that gives you the ability to add notes to patient encounters with a free text type feature means you don’t need to switch to a “notes” app. Instead, you create notes anywhere you need them in the patient’s record, the way you would on physical paper.
On touchscreen devices, you can easily navigate and touch to type, which gives the experience of a traditional paper document feel. With MaximEyes EHR you can document an entire exam without typing a single note or number if you edit preferred values in your EHR.
4. Customize EHR Workflows
Every optometry practice is different. Being able to personalize your workflow in your practice management and EHR system is critical to saving time. One survey participant described this as their favorite time-saving feature of EHR software, saying they “Love the customizable boxes, auto-fill options, and drop-downs.”
While most EHRs come with pre-built exam templates, good EHR software allows you to customize the encounter form and encounter types to fit your workflows, with or without the help of an EHR vendor.
5. Easier Scheduling
With cloud-based or cloud-hosted practice management software, you have the power to quickly pull up your schedule and make sure patient visits run on time. It’s easy to reschedule appointments and have everyone in your practice on the same page no matter when or where they’re accessing the software.
You can also empower your patients with real-time online scheduling via a secure patient portal that integrates with EHR software.
6. Documentation Shortcuts
Patients don’t want to always see their practitioners behind a computer screen. To increase face time with patients, you need an EHR system that eliminates keystrokes with documentation shortcuts.
With a copy-forward feature, you copy all previous encounter data as the starting point for today’s exam. With a data transfer button, instantly send patient data to other departments, such as billing or optical, and cut document processing time. A good EHR will also create pop-up alerts and automate tasks based on certain conditions or exam findings.
7. Two-Way E-Prescribing
While many optometry EHRs offer integrated e-Prescribing (eRx) solutions, a two-way eRx integration lets you send prescriptions and import medications prescribed by other physicians.
Medication history and adherence tools within MaximEyes EHR eRx give doctors easy access to advanced clinical, behavioral, and financial support tools that drive greater levels of medication adherence and improve patient health outcomes.
8. Auto-Link Documents to Encounters
Another huge time saver is a feature that automatically links important documents, such as referring letters or examination summaries, to an encounter based on encounter type and diagnosis codes. For example, educational material or specific post-op forms for patients will automatically attach via the encounter type and specific diagnosis codes.
Fewer mouse clicks, less typing, and fewer screens streamline your workflow and reduce manual work involved, saving your practice (and your patients) lots of time.
Boost Efficiency with Intuitive EHR Systems
The right EHR and practice management system will take your eye care practice to the next level by helping you serve your patients better and faster. MaximEyes EHR by First Insight has all the features you can expect to find in a top-of-the-line EHR system.
Save time and eliminate transcription errors by importing diagnostic results from ophthalmic equipment with hundreds of integrations.
MaximEyes is highly customizable, allowing you to streamline your practice’s workflow by building your own rules. Use built-in medical coding wizards that suggest diagnosis and procedure codes, plans, and outbound documents that are based on the patient exam data you enter in the exam form.
Most importantly, MaximEyes provides excellent customer support when you need it—and we have the stats to prove it.
Let’s take your eye care practice to the next level. Request a demo today to see how MaximEyes can help you become more efficient.