When I came in to work today, I knew it was going to be a good day.
It is the day our eye doctor decided he would go digital.
You see, I work at as a secretary in an office of eye doctors.
I have heard much news about electronic medical records and how they have helped many other medical practices become much nicer and run more efficiently.
As a secretary, a big part of my job is making sure everybody's medical record is up to date and filed away properly.
However, converting the office to use emr software would make my job much more enjoyable.
The problem here, however, is that this is an office with 3 eye doctors and only one is willing to transfer his paper medical records to the software system.
Even though the other doctors aren't completely convinced about doing it, we are still planning on converting our office.
His other office has gone to EMR's and they have not had too many problems, but we have more patients here.
The other doctors will have to learn how to us the system because many times a doctor isn't available for their specific patient and have to be seen by one of the other doctors.
This means that I will have a large task in trying to help the other doctors become acquainted with the new system.
This gives me a good opportunity though to be able to convince them that the system is helpful when I am teaching them how to use it.
About 4 Weeks Later Transferring all of our paper records into the new system has not been a very easy task.
However, we are already beginning to see how the software is really going to speed things up around here.
The other doctors are still critical of the new system, but even they have seen how it can be beneficial as well.
Honestly, it hasn't been the easiest thing to do, especially since we have one problem that is specific to an optometrists practice.
Unless you have worked in an eye doctor's office before, you probably don't realize how big a chart can get for someone who has Glaucoma.
There are two tests that we must perform on every Glaucoma patient every six months.
Then, we print these tests off and it is also necessary to check both the right and left eye.
Getting around that is impossible, because only 1 machine can't store all of the info and not even one of the machines has a connection with the computers we use.
Now you can maybe understand that after a few years, a very big chart can be built up by just one patient.
We have a small scanner, so those thick charts take a chunk of time to get all scanned in.
We could really use something designed for more volume.
Then after we scan it in, we have to move each page one by one over to the program designed for our EMR's so the doctor has access to it when he needs it.
About 8 weeks Later We have nearly completed the process of transferring all of our records.
I did not foresee when we started this venture, the problems that we would have, like our practice management software going down.
We had to call for all the charts that we did not have because they were scanned.
That does not happen too often thankfully, but those patients had an extra wait that day.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that we are the only practice attempting to do this.
We are at a clinic with several other practices.
We do not have the resources necessary to convert everyone to EMRs.
We would need a better system and cooperation from everyone to start a venture like that so we could completely get rid of charts for good.
Even with these minor problems, converting our office from paper to electronic medical records has helped out greatly.
We have less filing and it has become much easier to prepare for the next day's appointments.
In the next meeting, I am going to propose all of our doctors go to EMRs and then maybe word will spread that EMRs are the way to go.
It is the day our eye doctor decided he would go digital.
You see, I work at as a secretary in an office of eye doctors.
I have heard much news about electronic medical records and how they have helped many other medical practices become much nicer and run more efficiently.
As a secretary, a big part of my job is making sure everybody's medical record is up to date and filed away properly.
However, converting the office to use emr software would make my job much more enjoyable.
The problem here, however, is that this is an office with 3 eye doctors and only one is willing to transfer his paper medical records to the software system.
Even though the other doctors aren't completely convinced about doing it, we are still planning on converting our office.
His other office has gone to EMR's and they have not had too many problems, but we have more patients here.
The other doctors will have to learn how to us the system because many times a doctor isn't available for their specific patient and have to be seen by one of the other doctors.
This means that I will have a large task in trying to help the other doctors become acquainted with the new system.
This gives me a good opportunity though to be able to convince them that the system is helpful when I am teaching them how to use it.
About 4 Weeks Later Transferring all of our paper records into the new system has not been a very easy task.
However, we are already beginning to see how the software is really going to speed things up around here.
The other doctors are still critical of the new system, but even they have seen how it can be beneficial as well.
Honestly, it hasn't been the easiest thing to do, especially since we have one problem that is specific to an optometrists practice.
Unless you have worked in an eye doctor's office before, you probably don't realize how big a chart can get for someone who has Glaucoma.
There are two tests that we must perform on every Glaucoma patient every six months.
Then, we print these tests off and it is also necessary to check both the right and left eye.
Getting around that is impossible, because only 1 machine can't store all of the info and not even one of the machines has a connection with the computers we use.
Now you can maybe understand that after a few years, a very big chart can be built up by just one patient.
We have a small scanner, so those thick charts take a chunk of time to get all scanned in.
We could really use something designed for more volume.
Then after we scan it in, we have to move each page one by one over to the program designed for our EMR's so the doctor has access to it when he needs it.
About 8 weeks Later We have nearly completed the process of transferring all of our records.
I did not foresee when we started this venture, the problems that we would have, like our practice management software going down.
We had to call for all the charts that we did not have because they were scanned.
That does not happen too often thankfully, but those patients had an extra wait that day.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that we are the only practice attempting to do this.
We are at a clinic with several other practices.
We do not have the resources necessary to convert everyone to EMRs.
We would need a better system and cooperation from everyone to start a venture like that so we could completely get rid of charts for good.
Even with these minor problems, converting our office from paper to electronic medical records has helped out greatly.
We have less filing and it has become much easier to prepare for the next day's appointments.
In the next meeting, I am going to propose all of our doctors go to EMRs and then maybe word will spread that EMRs are the way to go.