Key Baseline Features Every EMR Should Offer
Behavioral health management companies are known to recommend certain electronic medical records (EMR) solutions. Some have a vested interest in a particular solution while others just prefer one over another. It is important to behavioral health providers to not settle for an EMR product that fails to deliver.
As a consulting firm that specializes in behavioral and mental health management, we have seen our fair share of EMR solutions. The point of this post is not to recommend one particular solution. Rather, it is to explain some of the key baseline features every package should offer. If yours doesn’t, it may be time for something new.
Security and Privacy Compliance
Data security and patient privacy are non-negotiable in the modern digital environment. Not only do behavioral health providers have an ethical responsibility toward their patients, but they also have a legal one as well. A range of state and federal laws – including HIPAA – make it abundantly clear that providers must protect patient data and privacy at all costs. With that in mind, security and privacy compliance in an EMR solution is not even a question.
Basic System Integration Capabilities
This next feature, system integration capabilities, is easy to discuss in a post of this nature. It is harder to implement in real-world practice. Nonetheless, a good EMR solution offers basic integration capabilities with other system software. It can be integrated with existing practice management and billing apps to cover the most important aspects of managing a modern behavioral health facility.
Again, this is often easier said than done. There are times when facilities need to replace all their software to achieve system integration. It is a big expense and one that requires a lot of work. But in the long run, integrated systems lead to greater efficiency and better care.
Hosted in the Cloud
The very nature and purpose of electronic medical records suggests that such records will be shared across multiple networks. That being the case, behavioral health management companies tend to recommend EMR software hosted in the cloud. Cloud applications are much more amenable to network distribution and access. Cloud applications also do not require vendor specific hardware per se. Everything runs in a system-agnostic browser.
Cloud environments can be made very secure through virtualization, segmentation, firewalls and zero-trust policies. If security concerns are preventing your organization from upgrading to a modern EMR, know that the modern cloud is arguably more secure than local networks.
An Intuitive Interface
One of the chief technology principles we have learned as a behavioral health consultant is that software is only as useful as a user’s ability to master it. Another way to phrase it is to say that people are not able to effectively use software they don’t understand. When software is too complicated, it hinders a person’s ability to work.
EMRs should be easy to use. Even at the lowest end user level, ease-of-use starts with an intuitive interface. Users should be able to log on and intuitively know how to get where they need to go. Even if they have never used the software before, they should be able to figure out how to navigate it fairly quickly.
EMR solutions are not exactly a dime a dozen, but they also aren’t scarce. There are enough choices to satisfy virtually any healthcare facility’s needs. If your facility is looking for a new solution, by all means pay attention to what behavioral health management companies are saying. But don’t stop there. Thoroughly investigate your options with the intent of finding a solution that offers, at the very least, the baseline features described in this post.