Do you use EMR/EHR? Looking for recommendations. This is for BSN project

[Missouri Public Health Association]

I am in an ADN to BSN completion program. I am currently in an informatics class. My project for the class is to get an EHR at my health department. I am wondering if any of you have electronic health records. If so, what programs have you tried? What program do you currently use? Would you recommend changing over to EHR? What have been the benefits of going with an EHR?

Thanks so much. We have talked about EHR in the past at our office so I am taking this opportunity to really investigate it for use later on if it is a route our department does decide to go.

[Missouri Public Health Association]

Below is an old post that I put out on the EHR we use, it may help you. Search EHR and Patagonia on this board. There have been quite a few posts on this, however those posts may be in different boards. If you can’t find more information feel free to give me a call:) 636-583-7312 I would be happy to help.

We purchased Patagonia last year. We are only a year in as of June. We were strictly paper before and billing Medicaid a little and using VaxCare. The transition was big for us because we left VaxCare and started contracting with private insurance companies and expanded our billing. We are over the hump and really like the system. It was designed for public health so it functions for public health in a way that I did not feel the bigger systems did. I would highly suggest calling up as many companies as you can and doing demo’s with each one. Get a feel for what works best for you. I think we watched four or five other demo’s and then went out to bid. Patagonia and one other company are the only two that responded. Patagonia was the best for our needs and the least expensive.
Pros;
web based, can access anywhere
easy to use
billing capability included
good support from company
geared to public health
reporting side is something I am really starting to review, so far I am impressed
calendar included with call reminder
they build it for you so you can build the screens to look like your paper template or use what they have (we found what they had was better than ours and switched on most things).
More lpha’s are starting to use them, hopefully DHSS will allow more interface opportunities if more of us use the same EHR
It sync’s immunizations into SMV
Cons;
-We were the first in MO to use them so some speed bumps in the beginning but this is better now.
-The ability to query from SMV is still not working so the bidirectional piece is being worked on by DHSS and Patagonia. I hear from both sides that it is the other’s issue but am confident they will figure it out.
-IF you have nurses that are not good with computers I would strongly rethink any EHR. It will slow them down to the point of really marking off your schedule if your not careful. Even my nurses that are good with computers are still duplicating work and using paper for accountability because they don’t “trust the system.” As a nurse myself I can tell you in the hospitals when EHR’s came out we dealt with these same issues but I forgot how difficult it can be to retrain a seasoned nurse to do things differently and let go of that paper.
-Most state systems other than SMV do not interface so you will have duplicate work on things. If we could get DHSS lab to interface it would be Wonderful!
-This will slow you down some, making the appointments a bit longer even with good computer skills. With that said, the accountability of the EHR, the billing capabilities and the ability to audit what is going on right from the desktop is worth it. The nurses and front desk may not see that and fuss about time but as a director my ability to see what is going on in a chart is much easier and I love that. So, maybe not a con but it will be for the front desk and nurses:)

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