7 Key Features to Have in Custom EHR Software 2025

It was by 2019 that almost all the hospitals and 89% of office-based physicians started using EHR software systems. Since then, the adoption graph has always shown an upward trend with even small-scale healthcare practices joining the digital revolution of the healthcare industry.

However, there was a peculiarity in the satisfaction rate with the EHR software system. According to JAMA Network, less than 30% of the family physicians were very satisfied with their EHR system. On top of that, nearly one-fourth of the physicians reported dissatisfaction.

This gave rise to a new trend in the EHR adoption rate, i.e., custom EHR software. This was due to the fact that most of the generic healthcare software systems failed to meet the growing needs and requirements of healthcare practices.

With custom healthcare software development—especially custom EHR software development—they found a way to fulfil their requirements. However, interestingly many of such approaches failed for various reasons, one being the lack of understanding to find the necessary features they needed for their custom EHR software.

You see, with custom EHR software development, you do not only aim to deliver quality care but also want to use it for medical practice management. In short making it a one-stop solution for all your practice needs.

In this blog, let’s uncover seven key features that must have in your custom EHR software making it a smooth transition from traditional healthcare practices to digital healthcare practices.

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

Patient Management

Your electronic health records (EHR) system will deal mainly with patient data, its storage, management, and other intermediaries. Here are some of the features that you require for efficient and effective patient management:

1. Centralized Patient Records: With custom EHR software development, you somewhere make an attempt to centralize patient records. In this, you would require comprehensive patient profiles, which would contain nearly all the necessary patient health information. This would not only improve accessibility to patient medical records, but it would also play a crucial role in care plan curation and the next processes that follow. Moreover, you should also provide secure storage of patient information to ensure your practice’s integrity and gain patients’ trust.

2. Demographic Information: Apart from the clinical information that you are looking for, the demographic information of the patient in an accurate and up-to-date manner. It helps you in including the search and filter capabilities of your custom EHR software, which can save your time from searching the entire database for a particular patient.

3. Insurance Information: While clinical and demographic information will streamline most of your patient management practices, including insurance information can further make the process easier for you. It can improve your revenue management practices with functionalities like insurance verification and claims submission.

Appointment Scheduling

Patient management features help you fulfill all the necessary purposes of your EHR software. Now, regarding medical practice management features, the first thing that you require is appointment scheduling. Here are the essential features and functionalities that you would require in this:

1. Online Scheduling: With appointment scheduling, you set the patient’s care journey in motion. Give the patients control of their health by allowing them to schedule their appointments. Furthermore, with calendar integration, you can further simplify the process for them by allowing them to check real-time appointment availability and that of the physician.

2. Automated Reminders: The problem that lies in the many practices who are still using traditional healthcare practices, are no-show and missed appointments. To avoid that, include the functionality of automated appointment reminders via SMS or emails to remind the patients of their scheduled appointments.

3. Flexible Scheduling Options: Flexible scheduling option is one of the necessary features for custom EHR software for small clinics. It gives the patients a way to efficiently schedule for multiple providers. To make it more personal, you can also choose to add the functionality of customizing the appointment by its type and duration.

Clinical Notes & Charting

During patient consultation, you would naturally need to take clinical notes and other features of patient charting. Rather than relying on traditional practices of paper-back notes taking and charting, you can directly include that in your customizable EHR.

Having said that here are some of the necessary features and functionalities that you need to have in this:

1. Structured Data Entry: By incorporating standardized templates, you simplify the patient charting process. Take suggestions from the stakeholders; you know what exactly they need in those templates. This will enable your providers to provide quick and accurate documentation, which will also set the dice rolling for future care delivery processes.

2. Clinical Decision Support: The feature of clinical decision support has been in trend for healthcare providers who are opting for healthcare software development. Your custom EHR software can also be included, and with real-time alerts and reminders, you further close the gap in care delivery. Moreover, since you will be providing care on the basis of patient health information, you must set and follow evidence-based care delivery guidelines to ensure you do not compromise on the quality of care being delivered.

3. Secure Document Storage: The clinical notes and patient charting should be easily accessible to providers and those particular patients. This can help in patient engagement and improving care plans, but while you focus on easy access to patient records, you must also secure the storage space. One of the best practices is to adhere to the HIPAA rules and regulation, to easily navigate through the legal and secure healthcare landscape.

Laboratory & Image Order Management

Some of the major aspects of your care delivery depend on other healthcare providers as well, such as laboratories to get test results and imaging systems to get MRIs, x-rays, etc. Here, the integration features for custom EHR software for small clinics become extremely necessary, as they do not have their own laboratory or radiology centers.

Here are some of the features and functionalities that you must consider during custom EHR software development in this regard:

1. Integrated Lab and Radiology Orders: Establish seamless integration with desperate healthcare systems such as labs and radiology. This will help you save time in reporting the results and deliver care on time. Furthermore, add the functionality of automated result reporting into the EHRs, so that the gap to care delivery is reduced significantly.

2. eReferrals: The service from healthcare professionals such as lab and radiologists requires referrals from healthcare providers. While physical referrals require travel and other things, with electronic referrals to specialists, you can save time and money and coordinate care in a much better and more sophisticated way.

3. Secure Document Storage: The documents or results you get from laboratories and radiology centers can reveal a lot of things about the health condition of the patients. And since you are storing it on your EHR system, you need to ensure safeguarding of those reports. Again one of the best ways to do that is by implementing robust security measures with HIPAA compliance.

ePrescribing

Did you know almost 7 million people are impacted by medication errors in the United States? While many attempts have been made to avoid that, the best course of action came in the form of ePrescription in custom healthcare software. For your custom EHR software, here are some of the features and functionalities for electronic prescriptions that you must consider:

1. Real-time Prescription Generation: This includes the functionality of generating electronic prescriptions in real time and sending them directly to the pharmacy. This will result in quick prescription writing and improve accuracy. Also, with access to the entire patient’s medical history, you can conduct drug interaction checks, which will further enhance the prescription process to avoid delivery of allergic drugs or pre-existing drug complications.

2. Electronic Prescription Routing: As discussed earlier, your custom EHR software system should be able to directly transmit the prescription to pharmacies to save time and other complications. This can reduce the chances of prescription errors significantly and even improve medication adherence of the patient.

3. Controlled Substance Management: Some patients might require drugs that contain a prescription for the use of controlled substances. In such cases, adhere to the DEA regulations and be compliant to avoid any mishaps. Also, navigate through the complicated legal landscape for the use of controlled substances.

Billing & Payment

Many healthcare practices often avoid the inclusion of billing and payment in their healthcare software development. This trend has especially been popular in custom EHR software development. So, if you are looking for a complete solution for your practice, here are the features and functionalities you must consider for the billing and payment part.

1. Automated Claims Submission: Automate the claims submission process, after the care is delivered. With this part integrated into your custom EHR software, it automatically becomes easy to share data and reduce the administrative burden on your staff. Furthermore, with automation you improve accuracy and the claims submission process is streamlined.

2. Real-time Insurance Verification: Add the functionality of real-time insurance verification so that you can add another layer of verification during patient intake. On top of that, it also allows for accurate billing and payment in the claims submission process. Furthermore, with verification, the chances of claim denials are minimized if they are not eliminated.

3. Patient Payment Options: Further simplify the process of payment for your patients by including online payment portal in your custom EHR software. Also, if possible study your patient population and on the basis of that include flexible payment plans that can further make the payment process easier.

Practice Management

While most of the features and functionalities discussed above are majorly related to patients and everything that involves their care delivery, here are some of the features that can help you in effective medical practice management and truly make your custom EHR software a one-stop solution.

1. Staff Scheduling: For efficient staff management and optimizing your workflow to its maximum potential, include the feature of staff scheduling. This will not only contribute to the practice’s efficiency but also streamline resource management for your practice.

2. Performance Reporting: Evaluate your practice on the basis of performance. The best way to do that is by identifying the key performance indicators (KPIs), and since your custom EHR software will generate certain data out of its usage, you can make data-driven decisions.

3. Financial Management: In the end, it all comes down to money, for which you need to include the financial management features discussed above. This will help you control costs and improve revenue cycle management.

Frequently Asked Questions