Electronic health records (EHRs) have become increasingly popular in recent years. The reason is simple: they allow medical facilities to manage their patient’s data better.
As such, these software systems can help psychiatric centers improve their quality of care and ensure that everything is done professionally.
A good example is Qualifacts, they provide EHR for mental health services, and their services are uniquely designed to needs of mental health providers.
However, there are some things you should know about storing EHRs before making any decisions about implementing them at your facility.
Patient Information Security
One of the main benefits of EHRs is that they can help protect patient privacy. The US Department of Health and Human Services stated that its Office for Civil Rights reprimanded Jackson Health Systems with a penalty of $2.15 million for failing to preserve patients’ privacy in paper records. Paper records do not offer you or your patients the level of security that mental health electronic records do.
EHRs can also reduce fraud and abuse in the healthcare industry. By using an EHR, doctors have a more efficient way to monitor their patient’s care patterns and detect any unusual changes that might indicate fraud or abuse at their clinic or hospital facility.
Increased Efficiency and Productivity
According to the CDC, 89.9% of office-based physicians use an EMR/EHR system. This acceptance is due to EHR bringing efficiency and productivity. A recent study shows that EHRs can help reduce the time it takes to access patient information, improve patient care, and reduce waste in healthcare organizations.
With the growing number of EHR systems in use today, clinicians have become accustomed to using them as a tool for documenting their notes or orders daily, thereby increasing efficiency while minimizing potential errors related to illegible handwriting or missed updates which could lead to duplicate tests or procedures.
Better Treatment Planning
According to Statista, about 970 million people worldwide suffer from mental health problems. With such a considerable amount, it is imperative to have a treatment plan in place.
EHRs can help clinicians plan patient care more effectively to provide the best possible care for their patients. With EHRs, doctors can easily create and edit treatment plans on the fly. This allows them to constantly update the information on each patient’s progress information without having to log into multiple different applications or manually search for their records online.
Treatment plans that are more detailed and easily accessible also allow other providers, such as therapists and psychiatrists, to understand your condition better so they can recommend medications or therapies depending on your needs.
Additionally, you may access your treatment plan with permission to know what steps need to be taken next when dealing with specific symptoms related to mental health issues such as depression or anxiety disorder.
Improved Patient Safety
EHRs can help ensure that patients are given the correct medication, dosage, and other treatments. As per a recent study, the most prevalent form of medication management error is dose errors. 7.8% of caregivers reported dispensing a low and 6.6% an excess dosage, and 5.4% the incorrect drug. Such medication errors can take the life of mental health patients coming to your clinic. EHRs can avoid this.
EHRs have made it possible for physicians to track medications prescribed by doctors at other institutions or even those prescribed by themselves at different times or places without compromising patient confidentiality because EHRs allow them to do so anonymously via encryption keys that only your healthcare provider has access to; thus allowing you complete discretion over what is shared with others while still maintaining strict controls over how sensitive information should be handled during its transmission between facilities or departments within a facility.
The benefits of EHRs are clear, but many healthcare providers are still reluctant to adopt them. The most common reason cited is the cost of implementation and maintenance. While EHRs require a substantial investment, they can save you time, money, and resources in the long run by improving efficiency and reducing errors.
Reduced Risks of Fraud and Abuse
EHRs can help to reduce fraud and abuse. EHRs make it harder to commit fraud because they have built-in safeguards. For example, if a doctor fills out an EHR to look like they saw a patient multiple times when they didn’t, then the system will detect this and flag the record as suspicious.
EHRs can also reduce insurance costs for providers by providing more accurate information about what treatments are needed for each patient in each situation, which means fewer tests are done unnecessarily.
In addition, because EHRs provide easy access to critical data such as blood test results from other facilities like pathology labs, physicians can give better care overall with less hassle than before when paper charts were used instead.
EHRs Provide an Effective Platform for Improving Mental Health Care Services
EHRs are a powerful tool for improving mental health care services’ quality, safety, and efficiency. They help to ensure accurate and complete patient information is available in real-time at all times. EHRs also have many other benefits that you can leverage to improve your organization’s operations.
An EHR helps to easily track patients between providers and medical facilities, providing a single source of information that doesn’t require manual data entry. This makes it easier for staff members to share vital information about each patient with one another as needed without compromising their privacy rights or violating any laws about confidentiality issues explicitly related to mental health treatment areas.
Areas such as suicide prevention strategies known as “safe harboring laws” offer protection against lawsuits filed by relatives claiming negligence on behalf of loved ones. Those who suffered severe injuries partially due to a lack of knowledge concerning how best practices should apply when caring for those at-risk themselves.
Even though being victims by others suffering from mental illness issues such as depression or bipolar disorder symptoms is also known more commonly, simply referred to as “manic depression,” which only applies within context sentences where explicitly specified, otherwise referring to generic terms like “depression.”
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are many benefits to storing EHRs. These are just some ways that psychiatric centers can benefit from this technology. However, it’s important to remember that there are also some drawbacks. For example, some people may feel uncomfortable with their information being on a server somewhere they don’t know about or control themselves. But overall, EHRs have made our lives easier and more convenient than ever by providing quick access to information when we need it most, and this is especially true at psychiatric centers.
