8 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your EHR System

Struggling with your EHR system? You’re not alone.

EHR systems present healthcare organizations with the opportunity to improve workflows, enhance the patient experience and generate better clinical outcomes. Unfortunately, EHR systems aren’t always optimized, which can cause more work — and greater headaches — for both your clinicians and patients. Want to know how to get the most value out of your system? Check out these steps to ensure you’re taking full advantage of all the benefits your EHR system has to offer:

1. Foster a partnership with IT.

To get the most value out of your EHR system, IT and Operations need to be working in tandem. An Informatics leader can act as a crucial bridge between the two departments to ensure everyone is speaking the same language.

2. Create an EHR Leadership Advisory Council.

This council should be prepared to advise on matters of quality of care, cost of care, clinician adoption of technology and future enhancements from the EHR.

3. Check your benchmarks.

If you’re in a particularly competitive market, you should be benchmarking yourself against your peers to identify opportunities for improvement in areas like patient satisfaction and readmittance rates. Then, explore how your EHR system can support your plans to address these gaps.

4. Redesign your workflows.

Your workflows should be tailored to maximize the value of your EHR system. Identify if there’s any misalignment between your existing workflows and your EHR system and make adjustments accordingly.

5. Bring your system up to date.

Check with your vendor to see if you’re behind on any system updates. If so, upgrade your software as soon as possible so you can take advantage of new capabilities and optimization opportunities.

6. Revisit your communication plan.

Your EHR system shouldn’t be static — it should be constantly evolving, which means you need a

proactive, flexible and consistent communication plan to keep everyone in the loop.

7. Train your workers.

Use role-based training to help users learn how the EHR system fits into their responsibilities.

8. Put your data to work.

If your EHR system is properly implemented and optimized, you should be gathering high-quality data, which can be used to generate predictive insights related to KPIs like no-show risk and days-in-hospital. To get the right insights, make sure you’re consistently measuring what you want to impact.

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