Feb 28
2023
The Role of EHR Platforms and Technology In Concierge Care
By Sameer Bhat, vice president of sales and co-founder, eClinicalWorks.
How has the pandemic changed your view of healthcare? For many patients, they recognized that the services their doctor was providing them wasn’t good enough. In a recent survey from Concierge Medicine Today, 25% of respondents said convenience and long wait times were an issue when going to the doctor, while 16% said they feel like a number. Many found a solution in concierge care.
Concierge care provides personalized care to members with added flexibility to work with patients’ schedules. Many concierge doctors offer at-home appointments, on weekends or after-hours for added convenience. Because of the benefits this type of care offers, the market is experiencing tremendous growth. In the next 10 years, concierge care market size is expected to nearly double to $22.7B.
C by Precision Care is a leading global medical navigation concierge business that provides access to revolutionary predictive, personalized, and life-saving diagnostic tools. The business was created to offer new medical technologies and innovative precision diagnostics. With such innovative tools for patient care, the practice wanted to ensure that its internal technology and software were just as advanced.
A Digital File Cabinet and Search Engine for Patient Records
A doctor-patient relationship is developed over time so that the doctor has a deeper understanding of a patient’s medical history and needs. But when a patient needs to visit a new doctor or change doctors, their medical history needs to move with them. While the industry has undergone a massive transformation, digitizing physical records into electronic health records (EHRs), there’s still room for improvement when it comes to accessing and organizing all that data.
C by Precision Care gathers records from hospitals such as Mount Sinai, Holy Cross and Baptist which use different EHR software. With multiple EHR software platforms to search depending on the hospital a patient is referred from, providers waste time trying to piece together a patient’s medical history. EHR platforms are creating innovative solutions to help streamline this process. PRISMA is a health information search engine that brings together records from small clinics to large-scale hospital systems into one searchable system. It also aggregates patient information from insurance payers and patients’ wearable devices to promote better interoperability. C by Precision Care is using the tool to search for patients records more efficiently and use their findings to improve value-based care.
Less Time Searching Records, For Increased Patient Facetime and Decreased Burnout
According to research published in JAMA Internal Medicine, 57% of physicians said time spent documenting reduces the time they can spend with their patients. This has implications for both parties. Patients don’t have as much facetime as they’d like with their physician, while physicians feel increasingly burnt out.
Nearly 33% of physicians spend two hours or more completing documentation outside work hours daily. This extra time makes it harder for physicians to provide quality care, has a negative impact on their well-being, and poses a challenge to an industry already facing labor shortages and an aging population. About 23,800 openings for physicians and surgeons are projected each year, on average, over the next decade. Outside of retirement, physicians are often inclined to leave because of long hours and inefficient processes. To reduce physician burnout and retain the current workforce, providers must adopt technology which makes physicians’ lives easier. These technologies and their benefits include:
- Automated reminders take the burden of manual patient appointment reminders and scheduling out of the physicians’ hands.
- Speech-to-text technology allows physicians to speak into their phone to transcribe visit notes, reducing the time spent typing up notes.
Technology as a Vehicle for Increased Efficiency and Higher Quality Care
Patients pay a premium for concierge care in the form of membership fees and monthly costs. Membership fees can range from $1,200 to as high as $10,000 per year. Given this, it’s critical that concierge practices invest in technology and software to support their physicians and, ultimately, their patient population. From search engines for patient records to automated reminders, EHR platforms provide plenty of tools for all healthcare providers to leverage for better patient care.