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Editor's note: In documenting the first 6 months of an electronic health record(EHR) implementation, Senior Editor Jeffrey Bendix and ContributingEditor Diane Sofranec spoke with four physicians enrolled in the Medical Economics EHR Best Practices Study to talk about their experiences. Doris Tummillo, MD, has been a physician for 20 years and has20,000 charts, which means her EHR system from ABEL will includeplenty of data.Eventually. "To do it right, you have to type in everything. Everything," saysthe cardiologist, who has a solo practice in Augusta, Georgia. "Soif you've seen the patient for 20 years, you have to get all thatdata in the system." [RELATED: EHR Best Practices Study aims to gather real-world data, solutions Survey documents EHR implementation costs Announcing our EHR Study Meet the physicians ] Tummillo is resorting to an old-fashioned method so she could useher state-of-the-art software. "Hire someone to type the data infor you if you want to keep your patient flow, until you get usedto it," she says. Decades of data cannot be transferred easily byscanning or downloading because information is often left out ornew and old systems are incompatible. "It has nothing to do with the vendor; it's just what you have todo to get [the EHR up and running], especially if you've beenseeing a patient for a long time," she says. "They've got a pastmedical history, and someone's got to put it in [the system]." Once fully implemented, though, the EHR will allow her to savetime, she says. Pulling patient charts will become much easier, andsending records via fax or email will be faster than photocopyingthem. Accuracy will improve as well. "If it does what it's supposed to, you can write down and documenteverything clearly so there's no question," Tummillo says. Forexample, she likes the fact that when a patient calls the office,the time, date, and subject of the phone conversation will berecorded in the EHR. As a result, patients who call and claimprescriptions weren't called in to the pharmacy will be a thing ofthe past. Indeed, the EHR will help stop prescription drug abusethanks to the ability to easily view a patient's prescriptionhistory. "In terms of recordkeeping for legal reasons, it's going to be alot better because it's not handwritten, and it's legible," sheadds. ALSO IN THE SERIES James Borges, MD: Progress means changing workflow Andrew Garner, MD: Rely on a scribe to improve efficiency Melissa Lucarelli, MD: Reaching meaningful use in 2012. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China Copper Annealing Furnace , China coil wrapping machine for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Wire and Cable Machinery.
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