How to Choose the Best EHR for Your Outpatient Clinic

Choosing the right EHR system is crucial for outpatient clinic. Everything from daily workflows to patient care quality and compliance will be impacted by the EHR you invest. Clinic owners, doctors, and health IT managers need a clear set of criteria to understand which system best suits them from the other options available in the marktplace.

Here is a list of factors to consider if you’re choosing the EHR for your outpatient clinic. We will discuss every key elements including usability, interoperability, pricing, telemedicine, compliance, support, specialist capabilities, analytics, and patient engagement tools.

1. Ease of Use

An EHR’s user interface is essential. Comprehensive guides shouldn’t be necessary for doctors and nurses to carry out daily duties. Clinician burnout was exacerbated by early EHR generations, which were infamously cumbersome and challenging to use. 

• Modern systems place a higher priority on user-friendly, 
• intuitive designs, 
• Often with fewer clicks, 
• Simple workflows, and 
• Even voice recognition, 

in order to expedite documentation and lower mistake rates. Indeed, according to a recent survey, 35% of medical group leaders stated that EHR usability was their top priority when it came to health IT. 

The goal is to select an EHR that is simple to use on a daily basis and requires little complexity from consumers. With a well-designed EHR, your staff will be able to spend more time caring for patients rather than battling the software.

2. Interoperability

Your EHR needs to work well with others systems because the healthcare environment doesn’t operate in silos. The EHR’s interoperability is its capacity to share data with other systems, including public health registries, labs, pharmacies, specialty clinics, and the system of your neighborhood hospital. This seamless data exchange is critical for coordinated treatment among providers. 

• For example, an interoperable EHR can collect test results right away, 
• Send and receive electronic referrals and consult notes, and 
• Share relevant data with payers or health information exchanges. 

When evaluating EHRs, ensure that they are ONC-certified for interoperability and support standards like as HL7/FHIR. By guaranteeing that all these things which are all involved in a patient’s care have the correct information, strong interoperability minimizes errors and redundant testing. 

To put it briefly, an EHR with strong interoperability connects your clinic to the larger healthcare network and lets you skip the fax machine.

3. Total Cost of Ownership

Cost refers to the entire cost of ownership rather than just the software’s initial purchase price. Understanding the licensing or subscription charges is a smart place to start, as EHR pricing structures vary. Then, consider implementation expenses, training costs, data migration fees, hardware or IT infrastructure requirements, and any potential downtime during the transition. 

To the original purchase price, it is necessary to consider hidden costs such as employee time away from other responsibilities for training and the short-term loss of productivity while the new system is installed. 

Support contracts, software updates, and any additional modules or integrations you desire are all ongoing costs. Realistic budgeting is essential. 

Assess the value provided while also determining what your clinic can afford. By increasing billing accuracy or lowering errors, a more expensive system that is more effective or better maintained can occasionally result in long-term cost savings. Within your budget, look for an EHR that offers a good return on investment.

4. Telehealth Integration

If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that telehealth is now a must-have for many outpatient services. “Telehealth is quickly becoming a core healthcare service across the United States, a preferred method of care for millions of patients”. Therefore, while selecting an EHR, seek for built-in telehealth connectivity. 

This means that the EHR should facilitate video visits and remote consultations without forcing patients or providers to launch other apps. To minimize complicated setup or misunderstanding for patients, video calling should be integrated immediately into the platform. 

Seek for secure, HIPAA-compliant messaging systems for electronic visit summaries and follow-up inquiries; these reduce phone tag and preserve communication. Consider whether the EHR can communicate with remote patient monitoring equipment to add data into the record if your clinic monitors chronic conditions. In today’s healthcare environment, a telehealth-ready EHR ensures that virtual care runs as smoothly and efficiently as in-person treatment.

Related: A Step-by-Step Guide to Launching a HIPAA-Compliant Telehealth Service

5. Regulatory Compliance

Regulatory compliance is critical since outpatient clinics handle confidential patient health information. To protect patient privacy and data security, every EHR you select must comply with HIPAA regulations. Practically speaking, this means that the system should have features such as tight user access controls, data encryption in transit and at rest, and audit logs that show who read or changed records. 

These security procedures secure Electronic Protected Health Information and help to avoid breaches. Check for HIPAA compliance as well as any other key criteria. 

• For example, if your clinic handles documents relating to substance use disorders, the EHR should follow 42 CFR Part 2 rules to ensure enhanced confidentiality. 
• Selecting an ONC-certified EHR, that is, one that meets the U.S. government’s criteria for EHR functionality and security, is particularly sensible because it ensures the vendor follows industry best practices and may be important for Medicare/Medicaid incentive programs

6. Training and Support

An EHR’s usefulness depends on how well your team uses it, regardless of how many features it has. Vendor support services and training are therefore important decision criteria. Examine the onboarding and training services provided by each EHR vendor. 

• Do they have a collection of how-to manuals, 
• Live webinars, 
• Online tutorials, or in-person training sessions? 

Excellent role-specific training ensures a more seamless deployment. Also, consider the learning curve; a more intuitive system may require less formal training, which is advantageous. Ongoing assistance after go-live is also critical; clinics can expect timely and attentive vendor support for problem resolution, response to inquiries, and updates. 

Ask suppliers about their support channels and hours and even their typical response times. An EHR vendor that will partner with you, through comprehensive training and reliable support, can make the difference between a painful transition and a successful one. Don’t overlook this human element when choosing your system.

7. Specialty-Specific Capabilities

Outpatient clinics are classified into a variety of categories, including family practice, pediatrics, cardiology, orthopedics, mental health, and others. Although many basic EHR functions are universal, having capabilities tailored to a certain specialism can dramatically boost productivity and provider satisfaction. 

Certain EHRs have modules or plug-ins for a variety of fields, or they are tailored to certain expertise. An EHR with built-in templates for skin examinations and the capacity to save high-resolution lesion photographs, for instance, would be advantageous for a dermatological clinic. A pediatric clinic requires growth charts and immunization tracking, but a behavioral health business may require therapy note formats and other privacy safeguards. To reduce charting time and improve accuracy, current outpatient EHRs usually include customized templates for each specialty. 

These guarantee that your workflows and documentation meet the particular requirements of your practice without requiring constant tweaking.If your clinic has a specific focus, strongly consider an EHR either designed for that specialty or one that has proven success in it. Specialty-specific features will save time and frustration by eliminating the “one-size-fits-all” mismatch.

8. Reporting and Analytics

In the healthcare industry, data-driven decision making is increasingly important. In addition to collecting data, your EHR should help you comprehend it. Strong reporting and analytics tools enable clinic administrators and providers to easily monitor performance, outcomes, and compliance. Reports on daily patient numbers, no-show rates, billing patterns, and clinical quality measures may be useful. 

A good EHR will provide a number of standard reports as well as a report builder that may be tailored to your particular requirements. Many systems now incorporate dashboards that convert raw data into visual charts, providing quick insight into your clinic’s operations and patient demographics. 

Advanced analytics may employ EHR data to provide predictive insights, such as identifying patients at risk of hospitalization or analyzing medication efficacy across your patient panel. If you require more complex analysis, at the very least ensure that the EHR can export data or integrate with external business intelligence systems. Having conveniently accessible data and reports in your EHR is critical, whether for internal improvement or mandatory reporting to programs such as MIPS. It can raise awareness of ways to improve care, increase productivity, and demonstrate its value to stakeholders.

9. Patient Engagement Tools

Patient involvement can have a big impact on results and satisfaction in an outpatient setting. Your clinic will have a contemporary advantage if it has an EHR with patient-facing features. 

• One of the most crucial features to look for is a patient portal where users can securely log in to view their medical data, test results, and visit summaries. 
• Patient portals promote convenience by allowing patients to communicate directly with their care team, schedule appointments, refill medications, and receive reminders. 
• When evaluating EHRs, consider how simple the patient portal is to use; if it is too complicated, patients will not use it. 

In addition to online bill payment and automatic text/email appointment reminders, some systems support telehealth portals or apps, which can help to streamline front-desk operations. Using technology to involve patients not only provides them with more influence over their health, but it also reduces administrative strain.

Related: Top 10 EHR Software Alternatives for Outpatient Clinics

Vozo EHR for your Healthcare Practices

From managing and organizing patient health records digitally to reducing medical errors, it significantly empowers providers to improve healthcare quality.

If you are searching for the best EHR system for your healthcare practice, Vozo EHR can be your go-to choice. Our comprehensive EHR solution lets you focus more on patient care while carrying all the burdens and simplifying it.

• Vozo Cloud EHR’s cost-effective cloud subscription benefits all levels of practice.
• Our feature-rich EHR helps you rectify mistakes efficiently and speed up the process.
• Vozo Specialty EHR resonates with specialty practice needs and requirements.
• Our expert technical team has got you covered 24/7 if any needs arise.
• Our EHR System continues to scale as your healthcare practice grows to improve the user experience.

The Vozo Customized EHR solution benefits your healthcare practice by:

• Streamlining the administrative process
• Improving workflow efficiency
• Reducing proneness to errors
• Managing all the patients’ records in one place
• Offers greater efficiency and cost savings across the board.

Our specialty-specific tools, such as scheduling, patient portals, lab integration, cloud hosting, and more, meet the specific needs and requirements of your healthcare practice.

“Embrace Vozo EHR to reduce your burdens and enhance patient care”.