What Makes an EHR Long-Term Care Specific?

A Mobile-Friendly, Cloud-Based Design

As previously mentioned, long-term care practitioners are often moving targets. So, they need an EHR that supports their workflows no matter where the day takes them. Long-term care-specific EHR solutions are mobile-friendly and cloud-based, giving practitioners secure access to real-time patient records at all times. This digital storage of patient information also ensures that all data remains organized in one place, minimizing the potential for lost, misplaced, or illegible notes.

What’s more, mobile-friendly EHRs should be compatible with a variety of PC and iOS platforms for additional accessibility. Smart designs also frequently back up stored data, as well as use dual authentication and encryption factors to protect you from data loss and security breaches. Storing patient data securely in the cloud, rather than on local devices, helps to ensure HIPAA compliance.

MIPS Reporting Made Easy

Many long-term care clinicians think that they aren’t required to participate in CMS’s Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) because they work in the nursing home environment. On the contrary, many of these practitioners must report to avoid penalty fees, which grow more expensive year after year.

A long-term care-specific EHR helps to make this reporting process a seamless part of your daily workflow so you can not only avoid those penalties but also earn bonus incentives instead. It stores information for all your patients across all facilities you serve in a single database, making it easy to collect and report MIPS data. Quality EHR solutions are also equipped with a real-time dashboard that shows your MIPS progress in real-time whenever you need to check it.

Successful Integrations with Other Systems & Services

Every long-term care provider has their preferred way of moving through their workday. Some insist on using dictation software to record patient notes more efficiently. Others rely on e-Prescribing tools daily to ensure that all patients across all facilities receive the medications they need as quickly as possible. Many spend the majority of their time in facilities that use PointClickCare and want to be able to share information with this particular system.

With this variability in mind, a quality long-term care-specific EHR platform maintains the ability to integrate successfully with a handful of other systems and services that are commonly used in the long-term care space. These integrations should also be optional, providing you with the ability to customize your overall experience rather than pay extra for tools your practice may not want to use.

Long-term care is a medical niche with a significant impact on aging populations, which are only expected to grow in the coming years. So, it’s important to equip specialized clinicians and practices with software designed with their specific needs in mind. The better we support the work they do, the better care they will be able to provide to these patients in need.