Using an electronic health record (EHR) system for your pain management practice enables you to facilitate data-driven development and monitoring of quality indicators. This involves utilizing and sharing data within or across health institutions in compliance with federal regulations.
That said, you might still ask these questions: Is an EHR system really beneficial for my pain management practice? Which features should I look for when buying pain management EHR software? As you grapple with the complexities of managing your practice’s daily operations, it’s only natural to want the digital tools that go best with the way pain clinics work, in a system that’s specifically designed for providers of your specialization.
In this article, we’ll talk about the importance of using an EHR software for your pain management clinic, highlighting the features that can improve the productivity and quality of patient care that you deliver.
As a pain management specialist, you use specialized methods to diagnose and treat chronic pain, a condition that is becoming more common today. A recent study published by the National Institutes of Health, U.S., has found that adults experience chronic pain more frequently than they do a number of other common health problems. This potential influx of patients adds more urgency for your pain specialists to optimize their operations further, ensuring patients receive the best and safest care possible.
However, if you don’t have the right tools and resources, quickly giving patients what they need might accidentally increase the potential for substance abuse and overdose. That’s why, having an EHR for pain management goes a long way in assisting you on operational and clinical tasks, so you can focus on making sure your patients are being responsible with their medications.
Moreover, pain management software provides a variety of useful features for practice management. With these EHR features, you can improve staff performance, reduce risk, and make better decisions.
In today’s healthcare IT landscape, many companies offer EHR solutions. Before you invest in one, it’s crucial to understand what your pain management practice specifically needs. To help you get started, we rounded up the most valuable details about the EHR features you should consider based on your practice’s unique needs.
Because patients with chronic pain require specialized care, advanced healthcare technology is needed in most clinics and hospitals that offer pain management services. If you decide to purchase an EHR software to augment the technology in your office, be sure to focus on the features that complement your workflows. Here are the most important features to consider when looking for the best pain management EHR software:
The American Medical Association Journal of Ethics emphasizes e-prescribing as a core component of CPOE systems that enables ordering diagnostic tests, patient referrals, and medications. In fact, the realm of pain management has wholeheartedly embraced e-prescriptions, gaining popularity among pharmacies, clinics, hospitals, and your fellow practitioners. This is largely attributed to the Electronic Prescriptions for Controlled Substances (EPCS) rule, enacted by the DEA on June 1st, 2010, which opened the door for the use of modern software technology in prescribing controlled substances.
With various healthcare providers and pharmacies choosing to prescribe digitally, it’s clear that adding e-prescription features to your pain management EHR is a big deal. Moreover, this feature provides timely information to decrease the need for substance abuse treatment admissions by prescribing and evaluating patient behavior. This way, you no longer need to install additional applications to access Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs).
Make your pain management EHR user-friendly by providing a special patient portal to help your patients stay engaged and satisfied. In a study involving 28,028 patients, 82% were active portal users. This illustrates how widely used portals are on the patient end of the business. That’s because patient portals enable patients to quickly get their medical info or personal details (either by sending a simple message or booking an appointment) from the comfort of their homes, or anywhere with internet connection. This will save you a lot of time because patients can enter their registration details and manage appointments – all in one place.
Having customizable templates in your pain management EHR software accelerates clinical documentation. These adaptable templates let you adjust your documentation process to match your own workflow or cater to the unique needs of each patient. EHR templates play an integral role in your daily tasks by streamlining your main responsibilities.
What’s more, using these templates can significantly reduce the amount of time spent recording patient visits, documenting findings, managing referrals, and handling pain billing. With a library of diagnosis templates built in your EHR, you only have to do a few clicks to accurately document visit notes instead of writing it all down the old fashioned way. Furthermore, these templates act as a reliable repository for keeping track of critical details like injections and procedures, which can be handy for future reference.
Integrating a medical voice recognition feature into your pain management EHR software brings a new level of convenience into your practice.
Like how people can prompt their voice assistant on their smartphones to jot down notes or set an alarm, voice recognition technology in healthcare software uses dictation to complete tasks. For instance, you might employ voice recognition to document the details of a patient interaction and create a note. Your voice becomes a tool to fill in various sections of your medical note with ease.
Rather than manually writing down the encounter details and typing them into a patient’s electronic health record, voice recognition software can do the job for you. With this feature in your pain management software, you can speak into the system to record your voice and convert it into text. With an efficient and highly accurate transcription program, you can save time and minimize data entry errors, all while having an engaging consultation with your patient.
If you are choosing an EHR for pain management, make sure that it includes integrated pain assessment tools such as Visual Analog Scales (VAS) and Numeric Rating Scales (NRS). Using these tools facilitates swift and precise evaluation of a patient’s pain intensity. The results from these assessments are critical for devising an optimal treatment strategy tailored to the patient’s needs.
When it is easier to understand your patients’ pain levels, you can decide which treatment options are appropriate for them. Ultimately, this enables you to effectively treat more patients at a given time, boosting the efficiency of your practice and ensuring that all patients receive the best pain treatment on time and on point.
What really makes an EHR software valuable and helpful are its features. If you spot these attributes in an EHR software, don’t hesitate to invest in it. What you’ll have isn’t just a tool, but the best pain management EHR that sets you apart from others in your field.
The Pain Management EHR software we offer has everything you need. Let us customize it so it feels like you built it yourself. As a medical management software solution provider focusing on customer service, we’ll be there for you every step of the way to ensure your healthcare practice runs smoothly.
Discover a new level of solutions made for pain experts! Contact us at (480) 782-1116 and schedule your free demo today for an immersive experience!
