Custom EHR Software Development: Which Healthcare Entities Can Benefit, Importance & ROI

The code of conduct of healthcare delivery has completely changed. The transition has been so smooth that despite being a healthcare professional, the change was not even felt. Let that be the use of healthcare equipment to the use of healthcare software systems for managing day to day activities and even delivering care.

However, the seed of this transition had to be sown somewhere and that came in the form of electronic health records. In its quest to replace paper-back health records, electronic health records allowed practices and patients in managing their health condition in a much more effective and efficient way.

Though the history of EHRs might take us back to the 1960s, it finally started to take shape in the 1990s and finally made its way into the healthcare industry after the passing of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act better known as the HITECH Act, in 2009

The rise of the EHR system in healthcare practices rose to 83% in 2018 and the arc has been higher since. However, lately a new trend has emerged in healthcare practices that is redefining the market of EHR.

According to a study, almost 32% of independent healthcare practices would not recommend their current EHR system due to usability and healthcare EHR customizations issues. This has become one of the major reasons why almost every healthcare provider in the US is searching for a way to build their own EHR.

Custom EHR software have not only helped them in meeting their specific needs and requirements, but have also helped in resolving the pre-existing problems that came with their current system.

Since every healthcare organization is different, they all benefit differently from custom EHR solutions. On that note, in this blog, let’s find why it is important to build your own EHR for different healthcare entities and what the expected return on investment for tailored EHR solutions for healthcare can be.

Benefits of EHR Development for Healthcare Practices

Being a healthcare professional, you know that every healthcare practice functions differently and there are a lot of factors that contribute to their way of working and delivering care. As mentioned earlier, every healthcare practice benefits differently from custom electronic health records, here are how custom EHR software development can benefit different healthcare practices.

1. Hospitals and Large Medical Centers

Usually, compared to a healthcare clinic or private practice, hospitals have considerably larger patient populations. This requires them to manage vast amounts of patient and practice data. That is why they need a scalable and customizable EHR solution for hospitals.

Healthcare EHR customization is needed for integrating your custom electronic health records with various departments such as ER (Emergency Rooms), ICUs, radiology center, pharmacies, etc. This enables the healthcare providers to seamlessly exchange, receive and retrieve patient information and deliver holistic patient care.

On the other hand, the need for scalable EHR solutions for hospitals is a necessity for managing huge volumes of data. However, during the development process, a keen attention must be given to EHR system design for providers, as they will be the user groups who will be majorly interacting with the software system.

2. Clinics and Private Practices

While healthcare EHR customization for hospitals consists majorly of creating a separate ecosystem, EMR software development for clinics focuses on being part of the vast healthcare ecosystem.

During the development process, every aspect of the practice, clinic workflow and administrative workflow must be considered. While off-the-shelf EHR software fails to provide a complete solution, a custom electronic health records solution can help clinics improve patient schedules, reduce administrative burden, and optimize workflows that suit their practice the best.

Furthermore, if your practice is providing specialized healthcare services, then a speciality-specific EHR solution can be developed with healthcare EHR customization. For instance, a dermatology practice would follow a different workflow and need specific features and dashboards that meet their practice needs. In this case, the focus would be majorly on medical images.

The story might be different for dentistry or pediatrics, where one would require different scheduling, image interpretation, integration, etc. In this way, custom EHR systems for private practices become their savior for smooth care delivery.

3. Speciality Care Providers

Some of the healthcare practices provide healthcare services for specialized fields such as cardiology, mental health or oncology. Tailored EHR solutions for healthcare speciality practices becomes a necessity because such practices have a workflow and unique way of delivering care that is specific to them also.

Apart from the need of adapting to the specific workflows, the dependency of these practices is high on other healthcare service providers. Requiring them to communicate and coordinate with other healthcare service providers. And at times even integrate niche tools for efficient care delivery. For instance, for an oncology specialty practice or mental health clinic, the specialty-specific EHR solution would need to integrate radiation therapy systems or mental health evaluation scales, respectively.

The Importance of Custom EHR Software for Healthcare Organizations

Interoperability is one of the major challenges in the healthcare landscape, and as many as 69% of healthcare providers have reported it. This might give you an idea about the importance of custom EHR development for healthcare practices. Though the core of the software would be easy access and management of patient health information, here is how a custom electronic health records system can impact your practice:

1. Streamlined Workflow and Efficiency

Custom EHR systems make it easier for healthcare providers to access patient health information. Along with that, with alignment to the specific workflow and healthcare EHR customization, the system can automate administrative tasks such as appointment scheduling, billing, etc.

Furthermore, with a cloud-based EHR customization, you can easily create a centralized platform of information, where you bring everyone care providers from different departments on the same page. This way, you can deliver care in a more personalized way and can take effective care decisions.

Along with that, custom EHR development for multi-site networks, allows easy and seamless integration with other healthcare systems. These systems usually include labs, imaging and even pharmacy systems.

In this way, from patient appointment to care planning and delivery, every aspect of the care journey and clinical workflow is streamlined by the software allowing healthcare providers to focus more on care delivery rather than other manual tasks.

2. Enhanced Patient Care Practices

With increased focus on patient care delivery, accuracy and timeliness, you automatically align with enhanced patient care practices. To further elevate this experience, the healthcare EHR customization allows you to have unique features that you might need.

These features might not only help you curate personalized treatment plans and take all the needs and requirements of the patient under consideration. Along with that, by bringing everyone on the care team on the same page, it leads to better communication between providers, specialists and patients.

In this way, EHR system design for providers leads to a well-coordinated structure for care delivery, directly or indirectly increasing patient engagement and contributing to enhanced care practice for improved patient outcomes.

3. Compliance and Security

The transition of healthcare to a digital landscape has indeed enhanced care delivery and practices. However, it came bearing some of its challenges, one of them being compliance and data security. While many healthcare practices struggle with compliance and safeguarding their patients’ sensitive information, custom EHR software development for hospitals can be an effective solution to this.

For instance, the EHR solutions need to be in compliance with healthcare regulations such as HIPAA, GDPR, etc. These regulations provide a framework that you need to ensure patient data security, however, as many as 94% of the healthcare practices do not have an ongoing HIPAA compliance program. This can lead to serious consequences from reputation damage to hefty fines.

Having said that, with a tailored EHR solution for healthcare, you can easily adhere to the HIPAA rules and regulations to meet industry standards and reporting requirements. Allowing you to ensure the security of the data and maintain the integrity of your healthcare practice.

ROI of Custom EHR Software Development

In the end, it all comes down to money and when it comes to custom EHR development for healthcare practices, it asks for investment. While off-the-shelf systems are much cheaper, but have many flaws that disrupt your care delivery process. On the other hand, the EHR software development ROI can be extremely beneficial in the long run.

1. Cost Saving Over Time

Custom electronic health records ROI cannot be immediately felt, but its impact can lead to huge cost saving over time. For instance, the implementation of the software will improve efficiency, reduce the margin of errors and help healthcare providers in providing better and faster care. This will contribute to lower the operational costs and bring the focus back on patient care.

On the other hand, by adhering to the robust security practices with stronger security features, the risk of costly data breaches is reduced.

2. Productivity Gains

The EHR software development ROI is not monetary, there are some aspects that help you in improving the productivity of your providers and staff members. With automated features and faster data entry and retrieval, clinicians spend less time on administrative tasks and the focus is brought back to patient care.

The reduction in administrative tasks leads to more time spent with patients, but reduces the average patient-provider interaction time. This will lead to an increase in the number of appointments, and reduced patient wait times, which will have a direct impact on the practice’s overall revenue.

3. Revenue Growth

Apart from all the things that contribute to patient care, automation comes in handy for billing and claims management processes. By streamlining the flow of information from patient EHR to provider system and the billing system, the margin of errors is significantly reduced if not eliminated. This will lead to better claim management with faster reimbursement and enhancing better practice revenue cycle.

Along with that, with the data analytics feature with EHR development for healthcare practices, identification of potential revenue opportunities can be easy. In such cases, your practice can take effective action to capitalize on such revenue opportunities.

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