EHR REVITALIZED WITH CLINICAL MOBILITY SOLUTIONSFor the medical profession, the push for Electronic Health Records (EHR) comes with many benefits—like patient portals that give individuals more ownership of their care—but also some unintended side effects, ranging from overworked doctors to underwhelmed patients. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the costs of EHR systems can negatively impact profitability across the board. Worst of all, EHR can often prevent doctors from truly connecting with their patients.

Clearly, EHR needs something extra: a solution that will help digital records realize their full potential.

A growing number of health care organizations are turning to clinical mobility solutions to get EHR the boost it needs. These solutions empower clinicians to make the most of EHR while decreasing the toll on providers, so clinicians can make health care more personal again.

CONTENT SOLUTIONS

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WHY EHR CAN BE TROUBLE

In today’s health care environment, complicated regulations and detailed workflows require physicians to grapple with more recordkeeping than ever before. But placing documentation responsibilities on physicians creates chronic problems, not only for doctors but for patients and the hospitals and practices that serve them.

First, the technology has sparked a lot of after-hours work, much of which is related to the need for doctors to capture handwritten notes made on paper. One industry report shows that some physicians spend nearly 50 percent of their office hours on recordkeeping.

Second is the way in which existing technology detracts from the patient experience. A study from Northwestern University indicates that physicians with EHR terminals in their exam rooms spend a third of their time during each appointment looking at screens. And if doctors are staring into computer screens, they’re not making eye contact with their patients.

Clinicians know they need to spend quality time with patients to keep them happy and healthy, but they are frustrated by bad technology. A recent study in the Journal of Health & Medical Informatics noted that physicians—particularly those with EHR that are not optimized—assail current EHR technology for a variety of reasons, including time-consuming data entry and interference with face-to-face patient care.

Next-generation clinical mobility solutions can help. These solutions break down the wall that technology can create between physicians and patients in an exam room, allowing doctors to see patients eye-to-eye during interactions. They empower health care providers to put down paper charts and truly leverage technology as another tool to convey important medical information. Most importantly, clinical mobility solutions save time and decrease the toll on doctors and nurses alike.

Some physicians spend half their office hour time on

recordkeeping

50%

Doctors spend one third of an appointment looking at screens

33.3%

7 out of 10 physicians feel EHRs reduce their productivity

70%

MOBILITY MAKES A DIFFERENCE

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Successful approaches revolve around 2-in-1s: Devices that double as laptops and tablets. Whether carried by hand, docked in a medical cart or at the clinician’s workstation, these devices can streamline healthcare delivery across the board.

To bring out the full benefits of such devices, Intel and CDW joined their respective expertise in healthcare, IT and medical equipment to create a family of best-in-class clinical mobility solutions that encompass 2-in-1s, Ergotron mobile carts and large LED monitors. These elements come together for a notable improvement in outcomes for physicians and patients alike. Here are three ways these solutions can deliver these benefits.

With full connectivity and lightning-fast processing speeds, 2-in-1s liberate providers from static workstations by providing real-time access to all of the electronic records a physician could possibly want during a patient appointment—X-rays, scans, lab reports and more. The devices have the capacity for improved EHR charting and graphics-heavy animations, as well as intuitive touch interfaces.

Health care providers even can use the devices to access email, messaging and clinical apps so they don’t have to return to their desks—and the integrated keyboards and trackpads make it easy to use those applications.

1. IMPROVED ACCESS TO MEDICAL INFORMATION

On a more practical level, clinical mobility solutions fundamentally change the way physicians manage appointments. Since EHR were mandated in 2014, doctors have been forced to insert technology between themselves and their patients, turning away from them multiple times during a visit to enter information into a computer. One doctor recently went so far as to state that with EHR, “the physician-patient encounter has become the physician-EHR-patient encounter.”

With 2-in-1 devices, physicians and patients can view information together, removing the physical barrier. What’s more, the Thunderbolt docking capabilities in 2-in-1s enable one-wire connections to displays, peripherals and power through a standard USB Type-C interface. This means clinicians can easily connect to displays on carts or in patients’ rooms for easy sharing of medical imaging and other visual content. The result is greatly improved patient understanding of their diagnosis, status and treatment options.

2. GREATER INTERACTION BETWEEN DOCTORS AND PATIENTS

Because physicians can use the 2-in-1s to input data about patients as they collect it, doctors can greatly reduce the amount of time spent managing health records back in the office after each appointment. This improved efficiency frees up physicians for a greater number of billable tasks—more appointments, research and so on. By extension, streamlining the process ultimately means more profit for the health care facility overall.

3. FASTER TRANSACTIONS ACROSS THE BOARD

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In the heavily regulated health care industry, there are other considerations surrounding EHR: security, compliance, manageability and scalability, to name a few. Because top-notch clinical mobility solutions are based on standard 2-in-1s with protections built-in, healthcare organizations can rest easy with technology that addresses all of these concerns.

Put another way, this joint solution extends a smarter EHR strategy all the way from the device to the organization’s data center and back again.

On the front end, security features such as full-device encryption and multifactor authentication lock down devices and ensure that they can only be accessed by authorized health care providers. On the back end, clinical mobility solutions from CDW and Intel offer straightforward device oversight that locks down patient data, satisfies regulatory compliance, facilitates provisioning and helps manage security updates. From a more practical perspective, all 2-in-1s have battery life that lasts at least a full shift.

Bottom line: Joint clinical mobility solutions from Intel and CDW represent technology that is as usable as it is transformative.

Overall, clinical mobility solutions that leverage the partnership between Intel and CDW combine the very best in processing power with technology that streamlines healthcare delivery and transforms EHR from a headache to a benefit. The real-world application of this technology allows physicians to simultaneously keep more efficient records and communicate better with patients. It’s a remedy that makes everyone stronger.

To learn more visit: Business Intelligence / Healthcare

BUILT-IN PROTECTIONS

Clinical Mobility solutions can make EHR much better — allowing physicians more face time with patients, and less time entering data. It’s a solution that’s as usable as it is transformative.

THE CDW-INTEL ADVANTAGE