5 Essentials of an Effective NextGen EHR System

Implementing an effective NextGen EHR is not a one-step process. You have several key areas to optimize to get the most value out of this system for your ambulatory care practice. The user experience, reports, capacity, workflows, and interoperability must support the way that your organization operates.

Quality NextGen EHR User Experience

A quality user experience is one of the most important criteria for your NextGen EHR system. Without a good user experience, physicians, nurses, and other staff members at your ambulatory practice will not be as engaged or productive with this solution.

There are a few factors that contribute to whether your EHR system needs some help on this front. The first is whether everyone receives enough training on the system. NextGen has many powerful features along with a user-friendly interface, but if people have a fundamental issue with how to use the platform, then they will run into a lot of frustration. It can be difficult to allocate enough time to get everyone fully up to speed at a busy practice, but the time savings and improved adoption in the long run make it worth it. When organizations do not modify their schedules in order to train staff properly, they have more substantial productivity losses in the end.

NextGen EHR is also highly configurable, and you will want a configuration that supports your type of practice and workflows. The needs that you have compared to another specialty area may be drastically different. When you use an out-of-the-box setup or one that is better suited to other healthcare areas, there will be a mismatch on the requirements. Partnering with TempDev to review your NextGen EHR workflows, customizations & configuration is highly beneficial to your user experience.

The way practitioners use the system should also be assessed over time. The initial configuration may have worked out great in earlier stages of your healthcare practice, but your staff composition and needs change over time. NextGen EHR should be adapted and customized to fit. It's also essential to keep new NextGen compliance measures in mind as regulations are introduced and updated.

Robust NextGen EHR Reporting Tools

You can't track performance and improve your practice if you don't have insight into your data. By taking an objective look at this information, you are empowered to make decisions based on this information. You can also stay on top of whether you are making meaningful use of NextGen EHR in your practice, and ensuring that you're on track to meet requirements for programs and incentives that you're participating in.

NextGen EHR has a variety of reporting options available, and you can further expand on that by working with TempDev's NextGen EHR reports. Some examples of EHR reports that TempDev has available include PAQ audits, task audits, clinical audits, and a practice dashboard.

Seamless Scalability with NextGen Hosting

NextGen's cloud-based hosting solutions make it seamlessly scale up and down as your practice grows and changes. You don't have to worry about costly downtime and extended deployments to roll out an EHR with greater capabilities.

Another area that your practice doesn't have to worry about with cloud-based systems is figuring out where you're going to set up and maintain the physical equipment. NextGen is in charge of that part of the operation, so you don't have to allocate the resources for the IT staff necessary to maintain the full system.

The cloud-based nature of NextGen paired with NextGen Mobile also means that it's available on any internet-connected devices in the practice. Physicians, nurses, and other staff members can look up information on-the-go from the device that's most convenient to them. They can access the records they need when they need them. If a workstation goes down, then it's a simple matter to switch to another.

Automated and Streamlined NextGen EHR Workflows

An effective EHR reduces the tedious workload that administrative work carries in the healthcare industry. Customized workflows automate many parts of common tasks, and optimizing each step leads to a highly productive and time-saving process.

NextGen Adaptive Content Engine offers great out-of-the box content while allowing for a high degree of customization in all areas of your practice. The system has 2,000 workflows built-in, and you're able to develop your own to meet the unique needs of your practice. The content that's already available can act as a starting point, and you can expand on these templates with TempDev's NextGen EHR template development to better support the way you run your practice.

Interoperability in NextGen EHR

Your patient data shouldn't exist in a silo. It's useful in many forms throughout your practice and in collaboration with other healthcare providers, non-profit organizations, government agencies, and other healthcare-related entities.

If you don't have an easy way to share EHR data with other systems, then you may find it challenging to get a full picture of a patient's health. In today's healthcare landscape, a provider must have an interoperability strategy to improve patient outcomes. It is also becoming necessary to adhere to interoperability requirements to meet the Right to Access Initiative.

Real-time updates of data and automated information exchanges allow your practice to work more effectively, reduce costs, and help your patients live healthier lives. Interoperability is also essential to cutting costs, including the amount of repeated work that occurs. This wasted time and money could be better spent on patients and other areas of the practice.

Another reason that interoperability is so important is to reduce the potential for burnout in your practice. If physicians have to chase down the patient information that they need, they may not be fully informed of the situation, or may not have the time to keep their appointment schedule. Integrated systems automate a significant amount of this process and reduce these points of friction.

Your EHR system should empower your ambulatory practice, not get in the way of your physicians and other staff members. Contact TempDev to discover how you can get more out of your NextGen implementation.