Clinical members play dual roles by teaching EHR skills to colleagues and also bringing clinical challenges back to the implementation team. Three important roles to consider include: lead physician, project manager and lead super user.

The use of EHRs has the potential to facilitate patient-physician communication via electronic messaging. It can also facilitate patient access to personal records, test results, health education tools, and tools for tracking and assessing the progress of chronic disease management.

Five Best Practices for Training Staff on Using a New EHR

1. Identify Employee Computer Skills and Provide Basic Training.
2. Designate One or Two Tech-Savvy “Super Users.”
3. Train Employees Only on Areas They’re Going to Use.
4. Conduct Post-Implementation Feedback Sessions.

5 Tips for Protecting Your Electronic Health Records

• Perform Risk Assessments Regularly. Don’t underestimate the value in performing routine Risk Assessments.
• Perform Vulnerability Scans & Penetration Tests.
• Utilize Encryption.
• Perform Updates & Patch Your Systems.
• Check Your Audit Logs.

Create a user training program. EHR testing (unleashing it in a “live” practice environment at some point) Clearly define go-live activities. Define critical success factors and evaluation strategies.

1. Assess Your Organizational Readiness: The first EHR implementation step is to assess your current organization – its goals, needs, and financial and technical readiness.

Implementation roughly takes around 60 to 120 days and medical organizations should have an EHR software implementation plan.

Tips for successfully achieving meaningful use

1. Pick your program. According to Medical Web Experts, there are two incentive programs: Medicare and Medicaid.
2. Get registered.
3. Develop a timeline.
4. Prepare yourself.
5. Prepare your practice.
6. Engage your patients.

Meaningful Use (MU) There are three basic components of meaningful use: 1) The use of a certified EHR in a meaningful manner. 2) The electronic exchange of health information to improve quality of health care. 3) The use of certified EHR technology to submit clinical quality and other measures.

Meaningful use will now be called “Promoting Interoperability” as CMS focuses on increasing health information exchange and patient data access.

The EHR Incentive Program, commonly known as Meaningful Use (MU), has been considered over or has “died” many times, but it is still around. Not only is the idea of required EHR use not dead, but it is changing and potentially expanding.

Meaningful use was based on five main objectives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They were: Improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities.

Though the Meaningful Use program consists of measures, requirements and timelines, it exists to satisfy a valuable pair of goals: Smooth, accurate data-sharing among care givers and a higher quality of care for all patients.

‘Meaningful use’ has been replaced with ‘advancing care information. ‘ Stage 2 added a measure to provide patients with electronic access to their medical information, which is supported by a patient portal for most EHRs.

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As of 2016, over 95% of hospitals eligible for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program have achieved meaningful use of certified health IT. Children’s hospitals have the lowest rate of meaningful use achievement, with over 3 in 4 children’s hospitals having achieved meaningful use.

Unless you successfully meet Meaningful Use requirements this year, you will become subject to a 1% reduction in your 2015 Medicare PFS reimbursements. The penalties, which are applied two years later, will increase each year up to 5% if you continue to fail the Meaningful Use requirements.

According CMS, 171,000 EPs are facing payment penalties in 2017 for failing to meet meaningful use requirements in 2015.

Benefits of using EHRs can include, but are not restricted to, reduced paperwork for patients and doctors, expanded access to affordable care, improved patient quality of care, prevention of medical errors, decrease in health care costs, increase in administrative efficiencies, and engagement of patients/families in …