News Feature | November 4, 2014

Are Your Clients Unnecessarily Struggling With EHRs?

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

AAFP: EHRs Are Failing Your Healthcare IT Clients And Their Patients

EHRs (electronic health records) are changing healthcare, but have proven they can still be a burden on providers. Your clients will find the information below useful if they’re feeling flustered over Meaningful Use attestation.

The American Medical Association has already issued a letter recommending that requirements be lessened, and if 2014 has shown anything, it’s that providers and vendors alike have had a difficult time keeping up. But how much of this hand-wringing is unnecessary?

Unstructured Data Not A Big Deal?

A recent study by WebChartMD has revealed that as little as 7 percent of data in the typical patient record is required to be structured to meet Meaningful Use requirements. That number increased to 9 percent when lab data was present.

The study (which analyzed 100 de-identified orthopedic and cardiovascular patient notes from MTSamples.com) found that up to 91 to 93 percent of data captured from EHRs in a structured format could actually still be captured as unstructured and meet Meaningful Use requirements.

WebChartMD’s CEO, Mark Christensen, weighed in: “This study is especially relevant for physicians frustrated by the negative impact EHRs can have on their patient interactions and their productivity. Physicians are often asked to capture more data in a structured format then (sic) Meaningful Use requires.”

The data that is actually required to be structured for Meaningful Use includes the following:

  • demographics
  • vital signs
  • smoking status
  • problem list
  • medication list
  • medication allergies
  • lab tests/values
  • minimum of one family history entry

When Is Unstructured OK?

Elisabeth Myers, Policy and Outreach Lead at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, says that much of the data around the patient encounter can actually be incorporated into the EHR in unstructured forms, without interfering with Meaningful Use requirements. This data includes history of present illness, assessment, and plan to start.

Dictation Can Be Key

According to Christensen, “Too many physicians struggle with their EHRs when they simply don't need to be. A greater use of dictation and transcription could represent a faster and easier means of documenting large portions of their patient encounters.”

To read more about advancement around transcription and voice recognition that you can recommend to your clients, read “New Approaches To Voice Recognition Technology In Healthcare.”