EHR Facts (continued)

4) How fast can a patient be charted compared to other EHR's?
The Number 1 Complaint from physicians who have purchased an EHR is; "it takes me too long to chart a patient compared to the time it took manually". In fact this has been such a problem that the Medical Records Institute has held a Patent Charting Competition at the annual TEPR (Towards the Electronic Patient Record) Conference for a number of years. The Patient Charting Competition brings EHR Products to compete against one another in a timed event charting a Level 4 Patient Visit.

There is an EHR that has WON this event every time it was held for the past 5 years. Some of the EHR products received a "DNR" (Did Not Finish). A DNR was given to an EHR program if the Level 4 Patient Visit could not be completed in a minimum of 7 minutes. 7 minutes was determined to be the time necessary to chart that visit manually.

5) Can the user add any data to the EHR for later use while charting a patient?
The most common method EHR's employ to provide users the ability to keep from re-entering redundant data during charting is in the form of Chart "Templates". While this method does save time for the user by allowing them to bring up data previously entered for say a specific diagnosis or chief complaint, without having to re-enter it, it also by the nature of its functionality hinders the user from modifying any item necessary while actually charting. The inability for the user to modify or add to the knowledge database of the EHR while charting has rendered some EHR's unusable.

An alternate method employed in an EHR is the use of Chart "Palettes". This method does not use "Templates" but instead allows the user to choose items from a list which can then be saved as a new Chart "Palette" for use again any time in the future. This method accomplishes the time saving trait found in "Template-Based" EHR's but also allows superior flexibility for the user to modify or add in any area of the program while in the middle of charting a patient.

6) Does the EHR learn from the user?
One of the main benefits of using an EHR is in saving time. The primary way to save time is to automate a process thus reducing user intervention. The two main methods of reducing user intervention are; 1) allowing a user to select data already stored for a specific purpose in a database and 2) developing a program that actually learns things from the user and displays information automatically that the user frequently uses.

7) Has the EHR been Certified by the CCHIT?
Three leading HIT industry associations – the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and The National Alliance for Health Information Technology (Alliance) – joined forces in July 2004 to launch CCHIT as a voluntary, private-sector organization to certify HIT products.

The CCHIT (Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology) was awarded a 3 year contract from the U.S. Federal Government in September 2005. The CCHIT released the first ever Certified EHR's in July of 2006. A list of these Certified EHR's can be found at www.cchit.org.

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