Electronic Health Records (EHR) Management and Challenges in Long Term Care Industry

The four most critical challenges faced by the Long Term Care industry today.

Shortage of Nursing Staff : One of the major challenges in the nursing homes today is shortage of adequate nursing staff. This has a direct impact on the service provided by the nursing staff as the residents have to wait for assistance from the nurses. In other words, the residents’ activities of daily living (ADLs) like bathing, dressing, eating, medication etc…are at times not being done in a timely manner. Hence it is very important for the nursing homes today to have adequate nursing staff.

Complex Regulations : Proper documentation and management of medical records is the most integral part and is a mandatory requirement for any Long Term Care facility. Nursing staff has been efficient in adhering to these requirements. But this is not the case in all Long Term Care Facilities. Errors may occur in cases where documentation is done manually. This increases the risk of regulatory citations and this can be avoided with a proper Electronic Health Records system in place. It would be any added advantage if your EHR software has both financial and clinical systems integrated under one system to take care of both financial and clinical functions in one platform.

Rising Operational Costs : Rise in operational cost directly impacts the cost of treatment given to the resident. Long Term Care facilities must have effective systems in place to controls costs. One option is to outsource their financial and clinical documentation part as this is a time consuming activity. This not only reduces the cost as there is no need to have additional staff assigned to perform these activities but also allows the LTC staff to focus on their core activity of providing quality health care to the residents.

EHR Management : It is very important to have a right EHR system in place. A lot of Long Term Care Facilities end up acquiring a system which is generic and not a customized platform. In this case LTC facilities are paying for software which has some of the functions which they might never use or which does not have some of the functions and are doing it manually. Hence it is very important to identify a right vendor who can provide you a customized and cost effective solution for your EHR software.

Any comments are welcome.

For further questions on effective EHR management call 408-856-6651 or e-mail chiragb@promantra.net