Which Healthcare Entities Can Benefit from Custom EHR Software?

The adoption rate of EHR software systems is at an all-time high in the United States. The lucrative benefits that an EHR software system offers to your healthcare practice are simply futuristic and transformative. To give you an idea about the adoption rate, according to HealthIT, an official portal of the United States, almost 4 out of 5 physicians are using EHR systems.

Going specific into hospital practices, the numbers might surprise you as it shows almost every hospital using EMR systems to carry out their day-to-day businesses.

While these stats show the high adoption rate of EHR/EMR software systems, I came across a statistic that forced me to pen down this blog. Being such a vital part of the modern-day healthcare system, 72% of healthcare providers struggle with their existing EHR systems.

Surprising, isn’t it?

Well, yes it is surprising, but to understand this problem, we need to understand the healthcare system better. While most of the healthcare practices have early on adopted off-the-shelf EHR or generic EHR software, it does not completely suit their practice to meet their needs.

Since every practice serves a different patient population and specializes in different healthcare service offerings, the one-size-fits-all approach is simply a failure. And to meet the specific clinical and non-clinical needs many healthcare practices are actually building their own EHR software solutions.

However, the question still remains: Is a custom EHR software development approach right for your practice?

Well, let’s find out in this blog below!

Who Can Benefit from Custom EHR Software?

Technically, every healthcare practice can benefit from custom EHR software development. However, if you are just starting out in the digital landscape of the healthcare industry, then generic EHR software can be the way for you to go. So, making the choices simpler for you, here are some of the healthcare entities that can benefit from the custom EHR software development approach:

Hospitals and Large Healthcare Systems

Large healthcare systems, like hospitals with patient populations of, let’s say, more than 1000, have different departments and complex workflows that suit particular hospitals only. This is where a custom EHR software development approach can be advantageous. It can be easily integrated with the existing system and technical infrastructure and support specific clinical and non-clinical needs. Along with that, specific specialties needs, and needs of the patient population can be easily addressed. This is the reason why custom EHR software development makes an ideal choice for large hospitals.

Physician Groups and Clinics

Generic off-the-shelf EHR software systems are designed to carry out both the clinical and administrative needs of a hospital. In this case, where a clinic of physician groups is providing healthcare services, meeting their specific needs becomes difficult. Furthermore, there can be gaps in coordination, which can affect collaboration. However, with custom EHR software with enhanced communication features like telehealth, secure messaging, SOAP notes, etc., communication and collaboration can be enhanced by creating a comprehensive and interactive network for all the members. Along with that, administrative tasks can also be streamlined to improve the clinic’s overall efficiency. Having said that, if the clinic physicians cater to specific groups, then with custom EHR software, they can cater to their specific niches and easily adopt their unique practice models.

Public Health Agencies and Government Institutions

For public health agencies and government institutions, managing huge patient health data is often difficult, and given the high data volumes, the off-the-shelf software simply doesn’t meet half of their needs. However, with a custom EHR software development approach, these agencies can easily manage huge patient health data volumes and track disease outbreaks with features like EHR data analytics. On the other hand, by making the system interoperable, data exchange can be easily facilitated with other healthcare organizations, and reporting for public health initiatives can be done easily. Since it will be developed for a specific purpose, the specific needs of the healthcare institute will be easily met while abiding by the regulatory requirements and compliance needs.

Key Advantages of Custom EHR Software

If your healthcare practice falls under any of the three categories mentioned above, then custom EHR software development is the way to go. And if you are opting for a custom EHR software development approach, there are the key advantages that you must know:

• Tailored Functionality: The specific clinical needs like specialty customizations and workflows unique to your healthcare organization can be easily achieved with custom EHR software development. Along with that, you can also add some additional features that are unique to your practice, which can also be added to the software to make it much easier.

• Scalability and Future-Proofing: It is natural for your practice to grow with time. Here, addressing its growing needs can be difficult. However, with cloud-based custom EHR software development, you can make your software future-proof and scalable. This means that it can be easily adapted to the evolving needs and requirements of the practice. Furthermore, with evolving technology, custom EHR software is more likely to adapt to such technological advancements than any other software.

• Improved Data Security and Privacy: Data security and privacy considerations are dependent on a lot of factors. With off-the-shelf EHR software, they are often difficult to comply with. On the other hand, with custom EHR software, you can address specific security concerns and compliance regulations to ensure improved data security and privacy practices.

• Enhanced User Experience: Give your users, from patients to providers, an enhanced workflow when working on their software rather than the same old interface. Along with the design part, you can also keep the software workflow at your convenience to streamline it and encourage users to use the software more for healthcare delivery.

• Integration with Existing Systems: Custom EHR software offers seamless integration options with customizations to other healthcare IT systems.

Considerations Before Choosing Custom EHR Software

Though custom EHR software solutions come with lucrative benefits, they can still be a complex affair to implement for your practice. With respect to that, here are some considerations that you must know before moving ahead with custom EHR software development:

• Cost and Development Time: Custom EHR software is a costly venture as compared to off-the-shelf software. Since it is developed from scratch and is specific to your use only, it is natural to have a higher development cost than off-the-shelf software. Along with that, custom EHR software also takes 3-6 months to develop and even more, depending on the complexity of the software. The development cost is something that one must consider before moving ahead.

• Internal Resources and Expertise: Implementing and maintaining custom EHR software is an ongoing process that requires dedicated IT resources or vendor expertise. So, having the ongoing maintenance and support terms beforehand is something that you should consider before moving ahead with a customized EHR approach.

• Long-term Commitment: Custom EHR software, unlike generic EHR software, cannot be discontinued whenever you face a problem. It is a long-term commitment, and problems are bound to come since it will be dealing with different types of data from various sources. Being prepared for ongoing maintenance, updates, and potential upgrades to your custom software system is something that you must consider.

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