Before buying the latest technology platform for your practice, there are a few key factors you should inquire about before finalizing any purchase. A few of these considerations include affordability, potential ROI for your practice, features and benefits, tech support, and one of the most important factors: interoperability.
Any new technology that does not interface with your current technology platforms could potentially add time to your staff’s workflows and could ultimately result in lost or missed revenue for your medical practice. Fortunately, many companies, including Klara, are designing new technology platforms to function cooperatively with many EHR platforms throughout the healthcare space, further streamlining patient engagement and information management in medical practices.
Interoperability of platforms ensures that technology has the ability to “talk” back and forth with each other so that when new information is received, it is updated across all platforms and reflected in the patient’s record.
Consider a patient portal, for example — if a patient requests a refill, reports a reaction to a prescription, or schedules a new appointment via a patient messaging platform, the information should ideally be updated in the patient’s EHR. Otherwise, one of your staff members must manually transcribe the information into the EHR, adding time to their workflow, which could essentially nullify the technology’s potential benefits of improved efficiencies and outcomes.
Interoperable technology can help save your staff time from updating records and transcribing patient information from one platform to another. Interoperability may also improve patient outcomes, as medical records will contain the most accurate and recent information about patients’ health and recent patient encounters. The fewer staff “touches” that are needed to communicate or document each piece of information, the less opportunity there is for human error to cause mistakes.
While there are many types of technology that you should consider interfacing with your EHR, here are a few examples that may help your practice yield efficiency results and ROI:
Interoperability of your technology platforms together with your EHR and PM platforms helps keep your patients’ medical records accurate and up to date with the most recent activity, including prescriptions, symptoms, appointments, payments, and more.
While many existing technology platforms are currently being updated (or retrofitted) to interface with legacy technology, the ideal product you choose should be one that was initially designed with interoperability in mind.
Klara’s conversational engagement platform, for example, is working towards the common goal of improving healthcare processes to deliver a seamless, patient-centric experience. In order to achieve this, Klara is investing in its network of EHR interfaces which currently includes ModMed®, athenahealth, Nextech, Greenway Health, Allscripts, AdvancedMD, and more. If you’re looking for a patient engagement platform that interfaces with your EHR, click here to book a demo.