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Technology Trends for Physician Practices: Looking Beyond EMRs

For several years now, recurring tasks within a Automating these processes offers channel of communication and make
physician groups around business process. For exam- many advantages; it eliminates the errors collaboration between people easier and
the country have focused ple, many physician prac- inherent in a manual process, is much more productive. They also offer a way
on the introduction and tices repeatedly move data faster than a human, and can be scaled to to find the information they worked on
deployment of Elec - from one information sys- perform many tasks at the same time. at a later time … in context. In fact,
tronic Medical Record tem to another by having a For example, maybe you need to retrieve many businesses are using Slack or
(EMR) solutions. In - staff member log into financial data from different office loca- Teams as their Intranet because of the
deed, most large prac- System A, create a report, tions and manually load it into your gen- ability to store documents, integrate
tices have deployed and then entering the data eral ledger. Instead of doing this for each other apps, and communicate with geo-
some sort of EMR capa- from that report into office separately, you can have the robot graphically dispersed staff. If you’re
bility within the last few System B. retrieve the data at the same time for looking to improve collaboration and
years and continue to This often involves get- each office. productivity within or among your
roll more and more busi- ting data out of, or into, This can greatly improve your under- offices, you should seriously look at
ness operations into BY DALE TUTTLE your General Ledger but standing of business operations, reduce these tools. When selecting any tool,
these solutions. While applies to any manual errors, and augment your staff by letting make sure it fits into your core IT back-
EMR adoption is impor- process where you get data them focus on higher-value tasks. The bone. If you’re already using Office 365,
tant, it’s equally important to remember from one system and manually enter it key here is doing more and doing it bet- make sure you evaluate Microsoft Teams;
that other technology advances and into another (including getting data into ter. it’s part of the Office 365 family of appli-
trends are also underway. More than or out of your EMR or moving data from cations and can be bolted on to your
ever, physician groups need to keep up your scheduling system to your billing Collaboration and Productivity existing subscription (potentially at an
with these trends and not overly focus system are other concrete examples). Tools Easily Connects Staff added cost depending on what your sub-
their attention on EMR deployments. So These tools record how the human Within the last few years, collabora- scription covers).
what other technology trends are rele- performed the task and then replicates tion tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams Putting it all together: RPA and mod-
vant for physician groups and why are those actions on a scheduled basis. For (two leading solutions but not the only ern collaboration tools solve different
they important? Let’s look at a few trends those of you who used to record Excel ones) have become ubiquitous within problems. But as you continue modern-
and see how they can fit into the overall macros, this is a very similar businesses around the country. They izing your IT systems, don’t forget the
technology landscape of a modern physi- concept...just more advanced. What’s offer topic-based chats, discussions, and world is bigger than your EMR system;
cian’s practice. different is the ability of the tool to log file-sharing organized around specific keep your eye out for other innovative
into a system, perform a series of tasks, groups of people. From a physician tools that can greatly improve how you
Robotic Process Automation and then take other actions based on the practice context, they allow your staff to run your business, and ultimately, how
(RPA) Streamlines Repetitive nature of the output it generated. easily collaborate both within offices and well you serve your patients.
Processes Some of these tools also use Artificial across geographic locations regarding
This is often called Intelligent Process Intelligence and Machine Learning to the myriad of issues that crop up during For more information, contact Dale
Automation (or IPA), probably so people make decisions based on the previous any given day in the life of the practice Tuttle, Partner and Practice Leader,
can avoid using the scary Robot word. actions it just took. But by and large, (scheduling, billing, staffing etc.). So, Withum Digital at (240) 406-9931 or
So, what is RPA/IPA and why does it mat- most RPA/IPA involves moving informa- what’s different? These tools get your dtuttle@withum.com
ter? Put simply, these tools automate tion between systems. staff off from using email as a primary or visit digital.withum.com.
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10 March 2019 southfloridahospitalnews.com South Florida Hospital News