Specialty EHR Challenges Every Small Practice Should Know

The transition from paper charts to EHRs has transformed healthcare, driving better patient outcomes and smoother administration. For small practices, adopting a specialty-specific EHR tailored to your field can modernize operations and boost efficiency, but the path to a fully optimized digital workflow comes with unique challenges.

The journey to the optimized digital practice is burdened with some peculiar EHR issues that small practices are expected to address in particular.

The advantages of a specialty-specific EHR solution are clear, such as a procedure-specific template and workflow, the obstacles encountered during and after implementation can greatly affect your team, productivity, and bottom line. In this blog, you’ll learn the most crucial specialty EHR challenges that every small practice should know.

1. Cost Beyond the License

Implementation Fees – The expense involved in installing and configuring the system, particularly to ensure it aligns with the specialty-specific clinical workflow efficiency requirements.

Hardware and Infrastructure – Do your current network and computer hardware satisfy the needs of the system? Small practices do not usually have the strong technical infrastructure needed, and the upgrade costs are unplanned.

Ongoing Fees – In addition to the subscription, consider a mandatory maintenance and support contract and possible upgrade or patch fees in the future.

Hidden Cost of Downtime – The temporary reduction in productivity in the learning curve and the initial transition is directly translated into lost revenue, which is a tough pill for any small practice.

Solution

Investigate cloud-based EHRs that usually do not need a large initial outlay in hardware. Ask suppliers for clear, bundled rates and attempt to get a comprehensive quote so as not to get caught up in any additional charges.

2. Disruption and Usability in the Workflow

Among the most promising benefits of a specialty EHR, one must distinguish a higher clinical workflow efficiency. The process of implementation tends to begin with a massive disruption in the workflow. 

Generic EHRs hardly match the complex specificities of a specialty, so clinicians have to fit their unique processes, often complex, into the restrictions of the software.

Usability Problems – Intuitive navigation, clunky interfaces with lots of clicking, and poor design cause severe problems in EHR usability. 

This may extend documentation time, which will then take the focus out of patient care, and the problem may add to physician burnout, a significant issue in staff retention in the small environment.

Data Entry Fatigue – Data entry may even become tedious and annoying in specialty templates, unless the system has been optimized.

Possible Resistance to Change – Employees used to legacy systems or paper charts might not be willing to embrace the new technology and use workarounds to compromise the whole purpose of the investment.

Solution

Insist on a demo that is customized based on your specialty workflows before the purchase. Engage end-users such as physicians, nurses, and administrative staff in the selection process in order to identify possible EHR usability constraints at the outset. Give priority to systems that have recorded high levels of user satisfaction in your specific area.

3. Interoperability and Integration 

In connected healthcare today, your EHR needs to be able to communicate with other systems. In the case of a specialty EHR with a small practice, it may not be easy to get smooth interoperability.

Communication Gaps – Your system must communicate with labs, imaging providers, external referral providers, and hospital systems. 

The absence of interoperability results creates data gaps, requiring either manual data entry or paper-based transactions, which both eliminate any clinical workflow efficiency and defy the possibility of error.

Integrating Primary Systems – Small practices tend to have a different system for billing, practice management, or specialty diagnostic equipment. 

Combining these dissimilar technologies with a new specialty EHR can also be technologically challenging and costly, and may need a custom development effort.

Solution

Have Vet vendors certify on their known integrations. Select a system that is certified to satisfy current interoperability requirements and can demonstrate existing and proven interconnections with common tools and other external systems in your area of specialty.

Related: How Specialty EHRs Boost Efficiency, Revenue, and Patient Outcomes

4. Limited Training and Support Resources

Companies with more staff have IT units and huge training funds. A small practice does not. This short supply of resources makes crucial activities an important challenge for EHR:

Inadequate Training – The staff many times left to acquire the new system and at the same time carry out their daily workload of patients. The main reason behind the poor adoption rates and EHR usability difficulties is skimping on in-depth training or merely using self-directed modules.

Technical Support Dependence – A small practice is extremely dependent on the vendor with regard to technical support. When the support offered by a vendor is slow, inexperienced, or only provided at specific periods of time, then a problem in the system will easily lead to the stalling of operations.

Solution

Negotiate the on-site or dedicated, one-on-one training during the stage of challenges within the EHR implementation. Identify and educate some internal super-users, who would be the initial support people, splitting the training load throughout the group.

5. Data Migration: Shifting of Data

Movement of years of patient records in the old systems or paperwork into a new specialty EHR is a colossal task. The process of data migration is complicated, time-consuming, and associated with the threat of loss or corruption of important patient data.

Selective Migration – Small practices are forced to make decisions about which past information is essential to resource expenditure to convert, frequently abandoning the older records in paper or the old system – a remedy which will only partially address the issue.

Preservation of Data Integrity – It is important to make sure that all numerical codes, unstructured notes, and sensitive historical data are preserved in a manner that is transferable into the new format; this will guarantee continuity of care.

Solution

Collaborate with the vendor to develop a detailed plan for data migration. Pay attention to the transfer of the latest and urgent patient records. 

A specialty EHR-based on small practices may find a phased approach to be more practical in terms of older data or a more secure-only approach where the data is in an archived format.

Vozo All-In-One Cloud EHR for 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 them.

• 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 aligns with the needs and requirements of specialty practices.
• Our expert technical team is available 24/7 to cover any needs that may arise.
• Our EHR System continues to scale as your healthcare practice grows, improving 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”.