The importance of redesigning workflows in often overlooked as healthcare organizations try to implement new EHR software to improve quality and meet incentive criteria.
The transition from paper to electronic brings about a radical change in the operational workflows of medical practices. With real-time transaction processing and care documentation, the capturing and sharing of patient health information and improvements in care quality being the basic purposes of an EHR system, the optimization of clinical and administrative workflows is of paramount importance.
The trends for care providers adopting technology are dependent on specific workflows . Therefore, it is pivotal to document existing “as-is” and proposed “to-be” workflows before purchasing and implementing an EMR software.
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Benefits of workflow documentation include the determination of loopholes in the current software or process, identification of high-risk areas, communication and collaboration breakdowns, compliance risks, elimination of profit draining tasks in addition to introducing automation where possible. The value of documenting existing workflows is considerably realized in the process of developing new workflows, where this documentation can be used as a guide to EMR implementation .
Furthermore, there are always hidden issues in the implementation of new workflows. To rectify these issues, it is useful to create a specific workflow that addresses those issues, so that if the issue re-occurs, it can be addressed through the new system (workflow).
