How NextGen EHR Usability Can Increase Productivity

Electronic Health Record (EHR) & Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems offer an efficient way for providers to document a patient’s chart, easing the burden of paper forms, and creating more time to see patients. Not all systems are designed equally, and each has its advantages and obstacles. TempDev's consultants are consistently looking for new opportunities to improve NextGen EHR usability, thereby increasing productivity for both physicians, staff, and IT departments.

What is EHR usability?

Electronic Health Records (EHR) usability factors include efficiency, effectiveness in carrying out specific tasks, and user-friendliness. EHR usability is just as critical as technical components like software features and functions. An EHR, such as NextGen EHR, with high usability, has the following traits: ease of use, increased efficiency, intuition, forgives mistakes, and is fast to document patient care. The goal is to reduce the amount of time doctors and nurses spend on non-patient tasks and keep their minds more focused.

Benefits of NextGen EHR Usability

An easily used EHR is an essential factor in providing high-quality patient care. NextGen EHR provides your staff with many ways to reduce the documentation burden and increase patient safety. For example, performing CPOE with NextGen can eliminate instances of illegibility issues with orders and prescriptions. A streamlined NextGen EHR workflow allows for more time to be spent on patient care, while increasing efficiency and reducing the likelihood of physician burnout. 

There are many ways NextGen EHR & TempDev can help your practice harness the power of your NextGen EHR, improve usability, and maximize productivity including:

Implement NextGen EHR  Essentials to Improve Patient Care and Increase Productivity

The absolute essentials needed in a NextGen EHR implementation are:

• Clinical tasking - Reduce email clutter and regularly communicate with staff for the care of patients by effectively utilizing clinical tasking.

  • Reports - Often times clinical tasking reporting is overlooked and when tasks aren't routinely followed up with, it can be to the detriment of both productivity and patient care. TempDev has developed a flat-rate, NextGen EHR Task Audit Report to ensure staffing compliance with completion of tasks.

• Electronic prescribing - Improve patient safety issues and the accuracy of medication reconciliation by implementing all features of SureScripts and NextGen EHR eRx.

• Online forms - Implementing solutions such as NextGen Patient Portal, Medfusion, Instant Medical History, or Phreesia online forms where patients are able to input their own health data improves clinical accuracy, patient satisfaction, and reduces staff data entry.

• Interoperability functions - Your team receives a myriad of benefits by unleashing the interoperability functionality of NextGen EHR, such as ordering and receiving radiology and lab test, pharmacy fill notifications, and automating the import of discrete data and documents from providers outside of your organization.

NextGen Healthcare has an array of solutions to meet your usability needs, but sometimes it’s not always configured correctly, implemented, or not exactly what fits your workflow. At TempDev, our expert NextGen consultants can provide a NextGen EHR assessment to review the configuration and features needed that will allow for your team to work efficiently with increased productivity.

Utilize the TempDev Quality Dashboard to Reduce Regulatory Burdens

With all of the regulatory requirements thrown at physicians, it has decreased the usability of many EHRs & EMRs. TempDev's NextGen EHR Quality Dashboard is a template designed specifically for physicians to easily improve quality scores and meet regulatory requirements. It allows providers to see the performance and take immediate action with HEDIS, ACO, MIPS, and UDS measures at the point of care. The dashboard provides ease of access throughout the NextGen EHR to place orders as well as meet the documentation needs of various quality programs. The Quality Dashboard creates a one-stop-shop for providers to increase productivity within the EHR, ensure successful quality reporting, and boost provider productivity. 

NextGen EHR Training to Increase User Knowledge

It’s essential to have your staff to have a full understanding of NextGen EHR. There are many areas of the application involved to make the system work in your favor. Sometimes it's not easy to know where to start or what is lacking. TempDev can provide workflow NextGen EHR training to your staff, train-the-trainer, upgrade, and superuser training to provide front-end knowledge and advanced File Maintenance configuration training. They can also do recorded training sessions that you can load into your learning management system (LMS) or save in a video library for users to watch and learn at their convenience. Let the system work for you by allowing your staff to gain the knowledge necessary to troubleshoot and optimize your version of NextGen. 

Check-In with Staff Members

Regular staff discussions about current system operations and workflow not only helps with team morale, but it provides an opportunity for the staff to divulge areas of opportunity in their workflow. Staff may not be voicing their concerns until approached, and this conversation may create new workflow optimization opportunities or customizations to come to light. This collaboration can help to ease any burnout before it starts. Allow TempDev’s consultants expert knowledge of NextGen  EHR and EPM to help you create the best solutions for any pain points. Our consultants have ample experience and expertise in the various workflows and specialties within NextGen and can work side by side with your team to create unique, custom solutions tailored to your needs.

Customized NextGen EHR Solutions and Improved Functionality

Many times, the out of the box templates in NextGen EHR are a great starting point to meet your workflow needs, but there are times that the current templates need to be adjusted to meet specific specialty needs. Your staff may try to document a procedure into a generic template or document a historical item to meet a quality program need. Why could this cause issues? This can cause a patient safety concern since users may not be documenting consistently. Using NextGen template development to create a custom solution can solve these issues and allow your staff to record all details needed efficiently. TempDev has worked with several organizations to create custom templates and reports to enhance the system and increase user satisfaction. 

Collaboration Between Consultants and Staff Leads to Improved NextGen EHR Usability

Partnering with TempDev means that your practice will have access to our team of expert consultants at your disposal. TempDev offers NextGen EHR development consulting, implementation support, project management, staff augmentation, and much more. Working with a team that provides such a wealth of solutions can significantly increase your staff’s productivity. This one on one support can offer unique opportunities and a truly tailored experience. 

Let NextGen EHR work for you and maximize your productivity by enlisting experts to assist you. Achieve maximum use of your EHR by improving the communication with IT, EHR team, and users. This type of dialogue allows the user to offer vital information on the tools they would need to provide excellent patient care, and a solution to map out how best to represent this. 

Contact the TempDev team at 888.TEMP.DEV.to attain the best NextGen EHR for your healthcare facility that promises high usability.