Solving the “Too Many Clicks” Problem in Your EHR System

As a clinician, during consultations, you focus on two things: talking to the patient and, second, looking at the computer screen and doing the necessary tasks such as documentation, prescriptions, etc. While you can see the frustration on the patient’s face due to the constant sound of clicks, he gets the feeling that the doctor is more concerned about filling in the paper rather than diagnosing or treating you.

Have you been in a similar situation?

Well, the problems that we’ve been introduced to by countless physicians are often related to EHR workflows and usability. And they have been actively looking for a solution for their EHR usability optimization. This leaves them with only one choice – shifting to a custom EHR.

To list some of the major reasons for this swift shift, some of the prominent problems are increased documentation time due to too many clicks in the interface and a cognitive burden on the whole team. And don’t even let me get started with the burnout of physicians. The piling frustrations often led to burnout, and that is one of the major problems that clinicians have been trying to solve, especially in the United States of America.

Now, the question that arises here is, ‘What can be done about this?’

The answer lies in custom EHR solutions, which allow for EHR customization, allowing you to mold the software according to your needs and requirements. On that note, here are some EHR workflow optimization strategies for clinicians that can simplify EHR workflows with custom EHR solutions.

In this blog, let’s try to find the answer to solving the ‘too many clicks’ in your generic EHR software with custom EHR solutions.

Optimize & Standardize Clinical Workflows for Efficiency

The first and foremost step in reducing clicks in EHR is understanding your system through and through. Begin by auditing the current processes to identify the bottlenecks and repetitive tasks that require revisiting and several clicks.

For instance, if you need a few extra clicks to synchronise the data across dashboards, then it can be brought down to a single click or even no clicks. Such problems can only be identified in auditing. After listing out all the problems, redesign the inefficient workflows to align with actual clinical practice.

Once that is implemented, standardized templates, order sets, and protocols will be in place so that your software aligns with necessary clinical and administrative workflows to ensure smooth working for everyone involved.

Furthermore, while you’re auditing the entire workflows and redesigning some of the core workflows of the software, identify screens, fields, and steps that seem unnecessary or repeated. This can result in great improvement for your workflows, and forced navigation between processes can also be eliminated.

These are some of the starting steps to streamline EHR documentation and reduce fatigue. Also, it sets the bedrock for improving clinical efficiency with EHR customization.

EHR Customization for Clinics: Personalization That Reduces Clicks

One of the major advantages of custom EHR solutions is that they allow you to customize the EHR according to your needs. Meaning, by using templates and macros to automate repetitive documentation, you can give your users a delightful experience with EHR usability optimization and reduce clicks in the EHR system by a huge number.

Automation can be a game-changing factor in this process. Since it can not only reduce the click rate but also ensure that all the information is synchronized at all processes accurately and instantly.

However, there are different roles in a clinic or a hospital, and one template that is usually used in generic EHRs just doesn’t fit everyone’s needs. This is again where EHR customization can be of great help. By tailoring role-based dashboards, they can tailor specific templates for their roles and ensure that they only see relevant data that is for their use. This way, you can ensure patient confidentiality, which can significantly impact patient satisfaction levels.

Along with that, personalized order sets can also be customized in a custom EHR solution. This can be extremely beneficial for the departments and can save a significant amount of time doing the clerical work. Some of the clinicians have implemented this, and it is now considered one of the best ways to improve clinical workflow efficiency with customization across various departments.

Also, you can enhance medical software efficiency in terms of its usability by enabling quick-action shortcuts, hotkeys for frequently performed clinical tasks, and macros. These features allow personalization of care delivery and practice-specific EHR usability optimization.

Reduce Clicks in EHR Using Intelligent Automation

The technology is advancing at an unprecedented speed, and with each passing day, there are new features coming up and the existing ones getting even more robust than ever. While the tests of new features are still under development, many clinicians have introduced advanced features as new in their system to improve EHR usability.

For instance, voice recognition with natural language processing tools has come in handy for many clinicians to improve their overall quality of documentation and care. On top of that, with AI-powered virtual scribe tools, they are able to document things directly, eliminating the entire process of clicking and typing.

Some of the other features that many clinicians have implemented for EHR workflow optimization are scheduling, prescription refills, and patient outreach. These features can be very handy and can be very useful for doing day-to-day administrative tasks.

However, one of the core things in succeeding at all these things is to improve system integration with labs, diagnostics, and other healthcare IT by using standardized healthcare standards such as HL7 FHIR.

With the introduction of AI-assisted documentation, the system itself can suggest things from its analysis and fill in the notes on the clinical context of the patient. These pre-fill notes based on clinical context can enhance the documentation process significantly with accuracy.

Furthermore, by applying AI-driven task and alert prioritization, your clinical workflow efficiency will be focused on priority care. This will enhance the clinical aspects of your practice by allowing providers to focus on what matters the most.

EHR Usability & User Experience Design at the System Level

EHR usability is directly related to the EHR user experience; the better the usability of the software, the better the user experience while using the software. So, if you’re planning to enhance the EHR user experience, then reduce the interaction friction between different workflows of the software.

Currently, the problem that many providers face is that to even perform a simple task, providers have to switch between different screens. By consolidating related tasks into single views or on a single screen, you can not only reduce clicks in EHR but also take the first steps to streamline EHR documentation and reduce fatigue.

Design also plays a crucial role in EHR usability and user experience. You see, by allowing shallow navigation paths to the clinical workflows, navigating between different features in the EHR becomes very easy and understandable.

One of the best things that you can adopt for this is by improving the visual hierarchy for the user. For instance, when the provider is able to see important information at first in the software, the interaction with the software is minimized, and the accessibility of healthcare information becomes enhanced.

Another aspect of EHR user experience that you need to focus on along with visual hierarchy is layout consistency. When the layout becomes familiar to the user and coupling this with the predictable interaction patterns makes the using of the software very easy.

So next time you want to improve EHR usability, remember to keep consistency in layout and use predictable interaction patterns for easy navigation and elevated EHR user experience.

Training & Continuous Improvement to Improve Clinical Workflow Efficiency

If you are thinking of adopting a custom EHR solution, something that you must know is that without proper training and support in the EHR usability, every feature is more or less useless. This is because if your staff doesn’t know how to use the software properly, then how will they be able to effectively use it?

In fact, it will only lead to more frustration and burnout, leading to provider dissatisfaction and usability issues. That is why you should offer a comprehensive and ongoing training session to all your staff. Creating super users who are extremely efficient in using it can be a great initiative to provide peer-to-peer support and workflows to the users in your organization.

However, it doesn’t end here; you have to create a feedback loop to identify pain points that the users are facing. On the basis of that, you have to make continuous improvements, giving you an edge in using the software better and with greater efficiency.

Also, if possible, analyze the usage patterns of your custom EHR to identify workflows and screens. When doing this, identify the contributing factors that increase the number of clicks. This is one of the best practices to understand the usability and know if the clicks are required there or not.

Optimize the Technical Environment Supporting Medical Software Efficiency

While upgrading your software is something that you can do, along with the software, what you need to focus on is the hardware. With widescreen monitors and faster devices, the problems of switching between multiple tabs and screens can be easily solved.

Also, with upgraded hardware, the software runs smoothly without interruptions. One of the finest examples of this is the use of outdated computers and operating systems in hospitals and clinics. This slows down the system significantly and can impact the workflows in ways that you cannot even imagine. In fact, some of us might have even been there where the computer doesn’t keep up with the speed we humans, where it should be the other way around.

Some of the performance issues that you must consider are server capacity, network bandwidth, etc. These issues contribute to extra clicks every time, and you, at times, find yourself stuck in a loop that just won’t break.

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