Need help?
Choosing Between Ready-Made And Custom EHR Solutions
In the US, EHR solutions form the heart of healthcare reform. Healthcare companies often require a software product that helps in aligning all the digital processes with their internal system. EHR has 96% coverage in hospitals today.
Choosing the right EHR solution is a challenge for many medical organizations. Every business is different, and requirements can vary based on your organization size and type, objectives and goals.
Healthcare organizations usually get stuck while choosing between a ready-made and custom EHR software. But first, let’s take a look at what is an EHR system and then at the pros and cons of each solution to identify which one is appropriate.
What Is An EHR System?
An EHR (electronic health record) is the electronic version of a patient’s paper chart. It is real-time, patient-oriented records that make patient information available securely and instantly.
Although an EHR contains the medical and treatment records of patients, an EHR system goes beyond basic clinical data collected and has a wider view of a patient’s care. It is an important part of health IT and can:
- Enclose a patient’s medical record, medications, diagnoses, immunization dates, allergies, radiology images, treatment plans, and test results.
- Grant access to evidence-based tools that doctors may use to make decisions about a patient’s care.
- Streamline and automate a doctor’s workflow.
One of the key features of EHR is that health data can be created and managed by certified doctors in an electronic format capable of being shared with other doctors at another healthcare organization. Thus, EHR’s contain patient’s information from all clinicians involved.
HIPAA Has Changed. Learn All About HIPAA And The Recent Changes In The Light Of COVID-19
Advantages Of An EHR System
EHR systems help doctors manage and provide better healthcare by:
Ready-Made And Custom EHR Solutions
Ready-Made EHR Solutions
There are multiple reasons why healthcare organizations opt for ready-made EHR software. They include:
- As these solutions are industry-specific, it is likely to meet most requirements of a company.
- Affordable up-front costs. Development costs are scattered between a large number of end-users. Ready-made EHR software is an attractive option if you have a limited budget.
- Ready-made solutions have several features that a company might start using with time as it evolves.
- Users are assured that any software problems are timely addressed as vendors usually provide maintenance and support services.
On the other side, few things make ready software a bad option:
- Healthcare specialists don’t always require the full functionality of a ready-made EHR solution or may require other features that are not available.
- Users can ask the provider or a third-party to add more functionality to the system. However, this means extra costs.
- Medical organizations have to pay for support services, different licenses, upgrades, etc. Thus, the system’s final cost can be higher than what the user expected.
- At times ready-made apps can fail to comply with the security requirements or the user’s hardware may not be powerful enough to run them smoothly.
- Dependency on a particular system could limit options in buying software for other uses.
Custom EHR Solutions
Several healthcare organizations choose custom EHR systems. The reason being:
- Custom EHR solutions have all the crucial functions and features that the business needs.
- Users don’t have to spend much time getting acquainted with the product. This is because custom software developers pay close attention to the user’s business processes and requirements while working on the solution.
- Custom EHR solutions completely fit the user’s security, hardware, and software needs.
- The customer has to pay only once. No licensing or additional fees are required.
- All problems are resolved quickly as the vendor provides fast and direct support to its products.
- Organizations have to only pay and manage for features that they want
- Custom EHR can be in sync with existing workflow and hence the organization does not have to make any changes
Few aspects that prevent medical organizations from ordering custom EHR solutions include:
- Custom EHR products generally have high upfront costs. The costs can be recuperated through overtime eventually creating a positive ROI
- Software development can be a lengthy process. Medical organizations should understand that they will not get their desired EHR solution in a week or two.
- Custom EHR has a dependency on the execution team to build the product. It is hence, always advisable to choose among established players
We Developed A Customizable EHR Platform That Empowers The Doctors To Define Their Treatment
Conclusion
Mindbowser’s EHR solutions are broadly used by healthcare organizations because of the substantial benefits that they offer: easy navigation, error reduction, enhanced information exchange, and access to clinical data.
EHR systems are in great demand among healthcare organizations. Mindbowser offers cloud-based HIPAA compliant custom EHR solutions that can transform your healthcare business in an advanced way that you never imagined before.
Mindbowser’s custom EHR solutions offer benefits like practice management to improve efficiency and integrate with your in-office devices. We are fully compatible with mobile and offer various integrations with different hardware devices. These benefits make it a better fit compared to ready-made EHR solutions.
