Management of paper medical records is a common problem. They take up a lot of space, are time consuming to pull and present numerous HIPAA compliance challenges.
Is there a better way for clinics, physicians groups and hospitals to get their paper records into their electronic health/medical record (EHR/EMR) software that won’t break the bank? Yes, there is.
To scan all of your paper charts and other medical records, you have two options:
Option 1: DIY
The first option is to do it yourself. It’s tempting to scan them on your copier/MFP or to purchase a inexpensive desktop scanner. The questions that you need to ask: who is going to do the scanning, can they be trusted to properly index these files so they can be found later, and can the equipment handle your volume. You will face a complicated decision at this point. Do you hire someone and run with the operation in-house? Or do you outsource it to another country?
Option 2: Outsource
The second option is to have a third-party scan your medical records. Since many service bureaus offer this service, how can you effectively compare them? Based on our experience, here are the top five criteria:
- Experience: how many medical records have they scanned before and what EHR/EMR systems have they worked with?
- Process: how do they describe their process for prepping, scanning and indexing, what is the expected turnaround time and how do they manage making charts available while they’re scanning?
- Quality Control: how do you know that all of your records were scanned and indexed properly?
- Security: how secure is their facility, and are they SOC 2 Type 2 certified and HIPAA compliant?
- Flexibility: can they scan on-site, and can they effectively scan all types of records? (e.g. labs, ECG/EKG strips, fetal monitoring strips, microfilm/microfiche, x-rays, physician notes, etc.)
Ingestion into EHR/EMR Systems
In addition to eliminating the manual labor of pulling charts the day before patients are seen, scanning paper medical records allows this information to be searchable and accessible via your EHR/EMR system like EPIC, Cerner, NextGen, and more by nurses and doctors alike. In this way, doctors can review patient charts from their home office or from a mobile device.
Because the document management capabilities of EHR/EMR systems fall short of what you need, we can implement document management software like OpenText™ AppEnhancer (formerly known as ApplicationXtender). We can even integrate AppEnhancer so that users can search for records from within your EHR/EMR system with embedded AppEnhancer code that pulls documents from the AppEnhancer repository and displays them in your EHR/EMR so users don’t have to log into two different systems. It’s so transparent that your users may not even know AppEnhancer exists.
Enhanced Patient Care & Increased Revenues
By scanning all of your medical records, you can find more information about each patient faster, which can enhance your quality of care. By eliminating the space where paper charts are stored, you may even have enough space to see more patients. And with a completely digital medical record, some physicians provide their patients with all of their medical documentation on a USB stick for a nominal charge (like $50), which can be a revenue generator.
Whatever your reason for wanting to scan your paper medical records, contact MetaSource today to get started.