When electronic health records were introduced, their intent was to drive safer, higher-quality care, empower patients, and even save money. But ten years later, some industry leaders believe EMR/EHR systems have not delivered on those promises. Today, many ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) are finding less complicated systems to automate chart management more effectively.
While nearly 96% of hospital systems have adopted EMR/EHR software over the last decade, experience to date suggests the systems are still suboptimal when it comes to harnessing data to reveal the most effective treatments. The intended goals of reducing medical errors and giving patients truly portable health records to share with doctors and hospitals anywhere in the country, has yet to be fully realized.
Among the most common issues are the high cost of these systems, along with the complexity that often makes simple tasks tedious and time consuming. While the vision for EMR/EHR was a streamlined system for sharing medical histories, the saturated web of competing vendors has undermined a seamless exchange of information. In addition, software glitches, user error, and other system flaws, have been shown to even put patients at risk. Finally, the systems require physicians to spend time interacting with computers rather than with patients, contributing to a growing problem of doctor burnout.
As a result, for ASCs in particular, many leaders are concluding that the problems associated with the EMR/EHR solutions outweigh the benefits and are turning to less complicated systems to streamline information. MedTek’s EZchart offers an excellent alternative for ASCs. Designed for use by facility staff, EZchart simplifies and automates the chart preparation, assembly, storage and retrieval processes with full audit functionality. Combining this with the ability to interface with scheduling, transcription, coding and billing, ultimately leads to significant time and cost savings.
“We designed EZchart to meet the needs of ambulatory surgery facilities,” says Kevin Tabatabai, CIO at MedTek. “What we’ve found is that an EMR/EHR is often more trouble than it’s worth, especially in a facility with a more narrow focus than a full-service hospital. Our solution eliminates the headaches of paper chart storage and helps integrate business functions, without going overboard with a full EMR system.”
To learn more about MedTek’s solutions for managing ASC medical records, click here.