Cloud-based EHR vendor Practice Fusion today released an online patient check-in that it said could eliminate reams of paperwork for both patients and physicians, thus saving time and creating further efficiency using mobile devices or computers.
The San Francisco-based company said its hope with the digital check-in process is to eliminate “what is considered to be the most redundant and cumbersome part of the visit with their doctor.” The information needed for the doctor visit will be front loaded before any appointment, with the idea that more time for one-on-one discussion can occur between patient and provider.
In addition, the company said it can likely eliminate “error prone re-keying of hundreds of pages of intake forms” that staff take in daily. Such forms typically run between 3-7 pages, and Practice Fusion hopes to eliminate an estimated quarter billion pages of paper this year for its 112,000 member practices, which collectively see over 100 million patients.
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The effort is the latest by Practice Fusion, and other cloud-based EHR companies and digital health startups, to provide a more consumer-focused touch to the doctor’s office and to healthcare as a whole.
A patient can provide medical history, demographics, insurance information, and reasons for the visit in an online form, which is then automatically provided to the doctor for review and incorporated into the patient’s record within the Practice Fusion EHR, the company said.
Doctors will also have the ability to customize the check-in with questions specific to their practice, as well as specialty specific questions.
“Last year doctors facilitated over 56 million patients using Practice Fusion’s EHR,” said Ryan Howard, founder and CEO, Practice Fusion, in a statement. “As a result of the delivery of this functionality, we will eliminate the need for our patients to fill-out hundreds of millions of pages of paper forms over the next year, and more importantly, make sure that this valuable face-to-face time is devoted to talking with a patient bout exactly what that patient wants to discuss about their health concerns.”
