Long Term Care EMR Software Buyers Guide
Last updated: December 05, 2023
A Complete Guide to Help You Make the Right Choice
Long-term care also known as LTC refers to any extended-care or post-acute settings. These can include assisted living facilities for adults, nursing homes, daycare services, or even home settings. EMR for long-term care facilities provides easy to use solutions to manage workflows, data tracking, and managing patient information and records.
Long-term care EHR systems have been experiencing exponential growth for the past few years. Why? Because of how simple it makes processes for practitioners and other medical staff as well.
Important Features in an EMR Software
Before purchasing any EMR software, there are a few considerations that you need to look out for. These aspects help differentiate a ‘good’ quality EMR software from a ‘bad’ quality one.
User-friendly Navigation and Experience: A user-friendly interface can help you simplify tasks and actions for your staff and help them in increasing their productivity.
Integration: You should easily be able to integrate the EMR solution you select with your existing system, irrespective of the device you are working on.
Ease of Access: You should also be able to access patient information, write e-prescriptions, check patient charts, etc. 24/7 from anywhere in the world. One of the biggest benefits of having a cloud-based EHR system is to not have to be restricted to your server for patient information.
Always Available for Support: When you are implementing a new digital solution, it is completely normal to run into problems. However, if you have strong support from your EMR software provider, you can easily overcome any problem you encounter during this process and afterward as well.
Before making any final decisions, it is always better to ask your provider for a Long Term Care EHR Software Demo. This will allow you to make sure if the software you’re choosing is the right one for your practice or not.
Features of Long Term Care EMR Software
Now it’s time to talk about Long Term Care EMR software specifically. Before making any final decisions, make sure your Long Term Care EMR software contains the following features:
Point of Care (POC): Whether it’s a nursing home, assisted living, or even home setting, Long-Term Care EHR should provide the nurses or the nursing assistants with an interface to track and monitor a patient’s health and other vitals.
Charting: Charting is a time consuming and hectic process if done manually. So a Long-Term Care EHR should also be able to provide documented procedures, show progress, share care summaries, etc.
Medicine Management: To make matters easy, Long-Term Care EHR systems barcode for medicine scanning and e-prescription.
HIPAA Compliance: A Long-Term Care EMR Software must also ensure security and safety of patient records while guaranteeing privacy and HIPAA compliance for patient/doctor communication. The majority of the providers ensure the safety of the patient records by using advanced tools such as data encryption technologies.
Billing: An Long Term Care EMR solution helps simplify your medical billing procedures by automation and providing timely verification of insurance coverage.
E-Prescribing: Long Term Care EHR Software also provides e-prescribing to create, prescribe, change, and renew prescriptions with ease.
Patient Scheduling: The Long Term Care EHR Software allows patients to schedule and change their appointments without any hassle. It also gives the option of enabling daily reminders and electronic booking.
Determining Your Needs
Before deciding which EHR solution to implement, it’s important to understand what your practice’s needs are. When it comes to EHR solutions, one size doesn’t fit all. Understanding your needs will not only help you decide the best solution for your practice but also help you use your EHR solution to the fullest. Long Term Care EMR software is in today’s world essential for practitioners because it helps save time and money.
How to Select a Long Term Care EHR Vendor?
Now that you know what kind of features you need to look for, it’s time to discuss what type of Long Term Care EHR software vendor you should select for your medical practice.
Vendor and Practice Size – Firstly, you need to understand which size of companies your vendor typically aims for. After that, you need to analyze the size of your practice as well. If you have a large facility, you wouldn’t want to select an EHR vendor that only deals with small practices. Typically, the vendors that cater to larger facilities have a high-cost Long Term Care EMR solution.
Vendor Certification – This is probably the most important aspect before selecting an EMR vendor for your practice. You need to make sure your vendor is ONC-authorized testing and certification body (ONC-ATCB). Selecting a non-certified vendor will only bring you trouble and a nuisance to your practice.
System Design – This will probably depend on whether you want to install a Long Term Care EMR software on-site in your server, or use a cloud-based one. Although you’ll get more advantages with a cloud-based solution, it probably boils down to your personal preference. Whatever you choose, you’ll need to find an EMR vendor that provides the service you are looking for.
Even after making a final decision, you should use a Long Term Care EHR/EMR software demo or check out their guides to make sure it is exactly what you’re expecting.
What’s the Final Step?
Before making your decision, it is essential to understand how every vendor and practice workflow is unique. For this reason, a vendor that may work for one practice may not exactly suit the other. Therefore, software experts and industry specialists are an ideal source of information, advice, and ultimately ensuring that the right decision is made.
After understanding the features and deciding upon a few potential vendors, you can also compare the pricing of the Long Term Care EMR software. After you reach a vendor with all the services, features, support, and cost plans you are looking for, you can finally make the last step and move towards its implementation.
