52 PLUGGED IN / Electronic Medical Records
Make sure the EMR system provides the basic information you need to capture to take care of your patients and that it is easy to use.
“The baseline, fundamental features
that make your business run better and enable you to provide good patient care are not sexy, but they are the bread and butter of your practice,” says Smith-Akin. Talk to several vendors about their
system and how the system will accom- modate your needs. Can it be integrated with your current PM software? Can you download laboratory results directly into the medical record? Is it easy to use? Can you upgrade and expand the system as you become more proficient at using it or as your practice grows? How easy is it to develop templates and reports? Can you customize the system to your practice? “Veterinarians need to pick a good
vendor, but they really need to educate themselves before they do anything,” says Smith-Akin. “Rate the company. Rate the software. Rate client support.” Take a critical look at your hardware
and your current PM software, Jones suggests. If you have an older computer system, it might not have the capacity to handle an EMR system. If you have older PM software, it might not integrate well with EMRs. You need the infrastructure before you can build a system, she warns. “Make sure your PM software can
handle the EMRs, and that your server can accommodate all the additional infor- mation that will be input into the EMRs,” Jones says. “Let’s make sure the software can accommodate EMRs. There needs to be a module or the capability to record information into that EMR. If you have an older system and you haven’t updated it, it might not have that module.” Dewitz agrees: “If you were going to
start a practice and you were going to use a paper medical record, you would look at a filing cabinet and find the best way to file those records. The same is true for EMRs. We want a good infrastructure, and that means the computer system and the PM software.”
Investigate the vendors. Do a Google
search. Find out how long the company has been in business. Find practices that use the system and talk with them. Try to set up a site visit at a veterinary practice to see the software in action. (Choose a practice similar to yours. It will not be helpful if your practice has 3 veterinarians and you visit a 24/7 emer- gency practice with 30 veterinarians. You want a practice that has similar needs as you do.) Do not just rely on the practices that
the vendor gives you as references, because they are good customers that are going to give glowing reviews. Ask the veterinarians if they know anyone else who uses the system. “They need to pick a good vendor, but
they really need to educate themselves before they buy anything,” says Smith- Akin. “Talk to many people who have used this EMR system. Whenever they talk with someone, they should ask, ‘Do you know anyone else who has installed this same EMR system?’ They must check references before they sign the contract.” An important consideration is tech-
nical support. How much help does the company supply when you are imple- menting the EMR system? How much support does the company give after the practice is up and running? “The EMRs become your lifeline for
running your practice,” Smith-Akin says. “If your system is down, you can’t see patients. Listen if someone tells you that the service is terrible.” Consider hiring a practice consultant
to help choose a vendor and implement the new system, especially if no one in the practice has the time or the skills for the task. Smith-Akin says that you have to choose the consultant as carefully as you choose a software vendor. “Switching to EMRs is a big undertak- ing,” says Dewitz. “If you take someone
Trends magazine, November 2012
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