Electronic medical record software features

Aside from how they handle patient records, there are many other features offered by electronic medical record software. Consider which are important to you:

• Allowing multiple users to access a record at the same time lets your administrative staff update insurance and billing information while the doctor meets with the patient.
• Remote access lets doctors access patient records from outside the office.
• Prescription handling can automate cross-checking for harmful drug interactions, as well as automatically transmit prescriptions to the pharmacy.
• Built in reporting can let you see statistics and trends across all patients: treatments ordered, visit times, total costs, and more.
• Any medical software should use SSL (secure sockets layer), the standard for secure communication – it’s a HIPAA requirement as well as a good idea to protect sensitive patient data.
• Connecting to practice management systems is important — read more on this topic in Integrating with medical practice management software.

Once you know which features you want, you’ll be able to narrow down your list of options. However, comparing these features across multiple packages can be difficult: you’ll often see similar features going by slightly different names or with slightly different options. This is where you should fall back on your initial research: make sure you pay the most attention to the features your staff considers important.

It helps to be a bit of a cynic, too. If you can avoid letting yourself be “wowed” by bells and whistles that you are unlikely to use, you will be able to stay focused on evaluating the features that are important to you.

Don’t just depend on a feature checklist, either. Getting your doctors and staff to adopt new electronic medical record software can be difficult, so it’s important that the system be easy to use.

Of course, every salesperson will tell you their electronic medical record software is easy to use. You need to decide for yourself what “easy to use” means, but here are some examples.

• Is entering information intuitive? Can you skip sections or include non-standard information?
• How much is automated for you?
• Can you easily find specific information about a patient?
• Are the various screens easy to understand?
• Consider real-life situations: what happens when a doctor is in the middle of editing a record and gets a phone call? Does the system allow for quick jumps from one spot to another, outside the typical flow of work?

Users will always have questions. How much contextual help is included? Are there pop-up “tool tips” to explain various buttons? Is the “F1” help system … helpful?

You are likely to hear quite a bit from salespeople about how much they can customize their electronic medical record software for you. This is another instance where you should be skeptical. Unless you are buying for a hospital with very intricate reporting and functionality needs, the software you choose should already include all the basic features you need.