How to Choose an EMR

Use this check list as a guide in what to look for when selecting an EMR for our practice.

Does the EMR support, in a fully integrated fashion, the following critical aeas in the practice?

1. Patient scheduling and recalls
2. HIPAA compliant patient registration
3. Patient processing and tracking
4. Clinical documentation
5. Point-of care Order entry system for prescriptions lab and other diagnostic testing
6. Document and image management
7. Eligibility checking, authorization and referrals
8. Coding and compliance checking
9. Charge capture, claim and remittance processing
10. Correspondence and phone calls
11. Data mining and reporting

Does the EMR provide the following important features in each of the ollowing practice areas?

SCHEDULING

• Multiple resource and multiple location scheduling
• Scheduling for physical resources and procedures
• Practice specific scheduling templates
• Customizable views
• Patient recall system
• Support for PDA’s and Internet synchronization

EMR & CLINICAL DOCUMENTATION

• Fully integrated Point-of-Care medical terminology
• Numerically codifies data elements across the entire chart
• Accept other forms of entries (text, voice etc.)
• Automatic mapping of all chart data to other standard terminologies such as ICD, CPT, LOINC, SNOMED, DSM IV.
• Integrated clinical decision support tools
• Dynamic alerts related to age, gender conditions or preventive services
• Ability to aggregate chart data by disease
• Provide in a single view the progress of all clinical elements in time, related to a condition
• Single page chart summary view accessible throughout the system
• Support dynamic charting of numerical values over time
• Support standard CDC growth charts
• Customizable care protocols
• Pre-filled encounter templates
• Customizable forms and integrated form designer
• Ability to build best practice guidelines into care protocols and forms
• Ability to exchange templates or protocols with other providers via email
• Automatic narrative generation and flexible correspondence capabilities
• Export of patient charts including images and documents
• Compatibility with the Continuity Of Care Record (CCR)
• Support to workers compensation new guidelines

ORDER ENTRY

• Electronic prescription writer with a complete Drug Database
• Dynamic support to insurance formularies
• Automatic drug reaction checking to all clinical information on the chart (drugs, conditions, symptoms, allergies, pregnancy and lactation)
• Transmission and faxing of prescriptions
• User defined laboratory and diagnostic imaging order screens
• Medicare compliance checking for medical necessities and production of ABN forms
• Electronic communication with laboratory testing facilities
• Electronic integration of results in patient charts
• Alerts and flagging of abnormal results

DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

• Integrated Image and document management systems
• Patient relevant documents and images can be attached to the corresponding areas of the EMR
• Scanning and integration of old charts with the newelectronic data of the EMR
• Automatic aggregation of documents and images by specific areas of the patient record (lab, Rx, Diagnostic imaging, referrals etc.)
• Ability to store and view documents and images in different formats

AUTHORIZATION AND REFERRAL

• Ability to track all authorizations and referrals by status
• Electronic pre-authorization of services
• Automatic alerts on remaining number of authorized visits

CODING

• Automatic E&M coding engine integrated with clinical documentation
• Comprehensive prompts on missing data elements required for certain visit levels
• Compliance checking of billing codes at the point-of-care.
• Coding justification for any possible audits

BILLING

• Integrated charge capture with clinical documentation and orders
• Automatic scrubbing upon matching
• Code sequencing
• Codes optimization
• Electronic and paper processing of claims
• Communication with different EDI providers and clearing houses
• Electronic remittance and posting of payments
• Analysis and reporting

DISEASE AND OUTCOME MANAGEMENT

• Ability to view and analyze condition progress and outcomes
• Ability to filter or aggregate chart data by disease

CORRESPONDANCE

• Integration of narratives with correspondence tools
• Support of practice specific auto-populating correspondence forms and templates
• Auto attachment of correspondence documents in the patient chart
• Compatible with standard office tools (i.e. MS Office)

WORKERS COMPENSATION

• Capture of all required fields
• Support of specific workers compensation protocols for data entry
• Automatic extraction of relevant clinical information from corresponding encounters
• Automatic population of Workers Compensation forms
• Recall reminders for forms re-submission

TELEPHONE CALLS

• Electronic capture of phone requests and phone encounters
• Call back logs
• Electronic processing of task requests
• Electronic processing of prescription renewal requests

PATIENT TRACKING WITHIN THE FACILITY

• View of patients by room
• Auto calculation of average wait time
• Function assignment at check-in

SECURITY

• HIPAA compliance security features including edit logsand auto-locks
• User access right to each area of the system
• Role based access to each functions in the system (view, edit, delete etc.)
• Filtered views according to user rights
• Support of biometric access and authentication
• Encrypted passwords

COMMUNICATION AND DATA EXCHANGE

• With integrated PMS
• With outside PMS and HIS
• With clearing houses and Health Plans
• With Labs and other diagnostic facilities
• With pharmacies (Fax, EDI)
• Support HL7, X12, HTTP
• Export and import of patient charts
• Export and import of protocols of care
• Export of data mining reports

DATA MINING

• Produces data queries on the fly
• Support unlimited data elements queries
• Provides analytical analysis of practice and performance

GENERAL

• MS windows compatible
• Compatible and inter-operable with other office productivity tools (MS Office, Exchange)
• 
  Support inter-office communication and task management
• Support to voice dictation and audio file recording in any area of the application
• Single SQL database supporting all functions
• Supports standalone application
• Supports LAN/WAN distributed network , runs in ASP mode and allows access from different locations
• Supports tablet PC’s
• Simple to learn and easy to navigate (point and click)
• Short implementation time
• Built in automatic database back-up routine