Nothing is more important to a healthcare provider than the safety of their patients — and in 2024, that includes the safety of patient data.
Practices that use intelligent electronic health records (EHRs) protect both.
An EHR keeps patient data more secure than a locked file cabinet ever could. Unlike paper medical records, electronic records:
- Restrict access
- Protect records from disasters
- Encrypt personal health information
- Defy tampering
- Enable efficient auditing
EHRs also support the practice of good medicine. Today’s smart systems contribute to patient safety by:
- Improving patient engagement
- Offering diagnostic support
- Optimizing decision making
- Enabling faster prescribing
- Providing quick access to records in an emergency
How EHRs Protect Patient Data
In the first six months of 2024, more than 41 million people in the U.S. were exposed to healthcare data breaches.
Successful data breaches are more often the result of lax processes than of weak systems. For example, the Change Healthcare cyberattack last February was attributed to a lack of multifactor authentication – an industry standard – on a critical system.
This underscores the fact that no matter what kind of recordkeeping system your practice uses, it’s crucial for systems and employees to follow privacy best practices.
EHRs Restrict User Access
When a high-quality EHR is properly implemented, it protects patient data from bad actors in your organization — and even from those simply not following protocols.
Paper records can be accessed by virtually anyone in your practice — removed from a cabinet with a pilfered key or simply picked up off a desk while waiting to be filed.
Electronic health records can only be accessed by authorized users with select permissions.
When you set permissions, you choose which parts of a patient’s file a user can see. Billing clerks, for instance, can be prevented from viewing health information, while nurses can be blocked from seeing financial accounts.
Since most successful cyberattacks prey on weaknesses in internal processes, it’s important for users at every level to receive comprehensive training in your practice’s EHR. Effective training ensures users know how to access the software’s features, how to use the software to improve the patient experience, and how to keep patient data secure.
In surveys, medical practices that were dissatisfied with their EHR reported receiving very little staff training — sometimes no more than a few hours.
Nextech prides itself on having an intuitive solution that’s easy to learn. Even so, we have a robust onboarding process to set teams up for success. The average new user training takes about 16 hours.
EHRs Protect Records From Disasters
Natural disasters are striking the U.S. with greater force and frequency than ever before. When planning for fires, floods, or storms, the question is increasingly not “if” your area will be hit, but “when” and “how badly.”
Paper records can be lost or destroyed in such localized catastrophes. The records stored in a HIPAA-certified cloud datacenter are far more secure. Daily backups are stored not only onsite, but in a secure off-site location for emergency recovery.
The power of a cloud-based EHR was driven home for staff at St. John’s Mercy Hospital in Joplin, Mo., in 2011. After a massive tornado, paper records of all kinds rained down across the city.
Thanks to its EHR, St. John’s quickly accounted for every patient in the hospital. Within two hours of evacuation, it had securely transmitted patient records to other area hospitals receiving Joplin’s sick and wounded.
EHRs Encrypt Patient Data
Privacy laws, including HIPAA, require electronic health records to be encrypted. If a hacker were to somehow access patient records, they would be unable to decipher the personal health information (PHI) within.
EHR vendors must balance encryption with interoperability. Choose an EHR from a reputable vendor using modern technology to ensure records can be easily shared with authorized systems, yet indecipherable to unauthorized users.
EHRs Defy Tampering
It’s an uncomfortable truth that paper medical records are fairly easy to manipulate.
On a busy day in the office, unauthorized personnel can flip through an unattended folder on a desk. Pages can be added, removed, or copied and replaced with no one the wiser.
Tampering can even happen accidentally. Harried office staff could slip a report into the wrong John Smith’s folder, compromising the safety of both patients.
It’s far more difficult to tamper with an electronic health record. First of all, access control means a user must have the right permissions to even view certain aspects of a patient’s file.
Change logs record any notes, additions, or deletions to the file, complete with a timestamp of when the change was made and the identity of the user who made it.
Specific changes could trigger an automatic flag for review, requiring secondary authorization before they become part of the record.
In all, a patient’s most sensitive data is far safer on a cloud server accessed through an EHR than it is in a file folder accessible to nearly anyone.
EHRs Enable Efficient Auditing
One of the best ways to minimize the damage of a potential security breach is to conduct regular audits. Audits uncover intrusions early and expose security weaknesses before they lead to a breach.
When records are kept on paper, auditing is a monumental task, requiring so much time and manual labor few practices can even manage it.
Electronic records, on the other hand, can be efficiently audited on a regular basis. The system performs most of the work for you, scanning for the information you request.
You can perform a general system-wide audit to look for anomalies, audit for a specific type of change, or audit for changes to a specific patient record.
If you suspect there may have been a breach, you can search for all records accessed or changed in a certain timeframe or by a certain user.
How EHRs Improve Patient Safety
EHRs help a medical practice to conduct business more efficiently. Their value extends far beyond the back office, however. EHRs have been shown to reduce medical errors and help clinicians provide better care.
EHRs Improve Patient Engagement
EHRs offer avenues for a patient to engage with their healthcare team. Through a secure online portal, the patient may have limited access to see and update their record, ensuring the clinic’s information is up to date.
The patient portal also offers a way for patient and provider to exchange asynchronous messages. This allows a free flow of information without requiring the patient to visit or to call during office hours.
As artificial intelligence shapes healthcare, AI chatbots provide patients a 24/7 expert in their pocket. A chatbot can help the patient complete paperwork or understand a treatment plan – even if their questions come up in the middle of the night.
Your EHR can also build the relationship between patient and provider with automated communication tools. Reminders, health tips, and requests for feedback go out to patients at specific intervals, helping them stay on top of the things they need to do to maintain their own health.
Engaged patients are empowered patients. In the long term, they view their provider as a partner helping them live their best life – not as an authority figure telling them what to do. This increases trust in their provider’s recommendations, leading to better outcomes.
EHRs Offer Diagnostic Support
An electronic health record does more than hold data. It analyzes and computes information, helping busy providers consider all the possibilities.
In a small practice, especially, a doctor may not have peers close at hand to consult. An intelligent EHR helps fill the gap, drawing connections between data points throughout a patient’s health history to support the physician’s diagnosis.
AI is also a powerful partner in scanning medical imaging. The software may detect tiny issues so small a provider missed them.
EHRs Optimize Decision Making
It can be almost impossible for busy providers in a private practice to maintain their patient volume and also keep up with the latest medical guidelines.
An EHR is always up to date. As providers are deciding on a course of treatment, the EHR can offer intelligent suggestions based on current guidelines and a patient’s full history.
EHRs also improve patient safety by facilitating communication. Almost two-thirds of medical errors are attributed to poor communication between members of the care team. An EHR can mitigate this by ensuring everyone is making decisions based on the same, complete data.
EHRs Enable Faster Prescribing
Getting a patient their needed medications in a timely manner has a tremendous impact on patient safety. An EHR can draft, send, and renew prescriptions at the touch of a screen.
The old trope about doctors having illegible handwriting is the start of plenty of jokes, but when it leads to a pharmacist delivering the wrong prescription or wrong dose, it’s no laughing matter. Electronic prescriptions eliminate the guesswork, transmitting directly from the doctor’s screen to the pharmacist’s.
The EHR also alerts the prescribing provider if the medication they want to use could have a negative outcome for this patient. Because it holds the patient’s entire health history, the system automatically flags known allergens or drugs known to interact with an existing medication or condition.
EHRs Are Available Quickly in an Emergency
When a medical emergency strikes, tracking down a patient’s regular provider, phoning for records, and waiting for a fax to come through wastes precious time.
Emergency responders find themselves between a rock and a hard place, particularly if the patient is unable to provide information themselves. Either they take action with incomplete information, or they wait for the information while the patient’s condition deteriorates.
Advanced EHR Features
Electronic health records are secure, improve safety, and help clinicians provide an outstanding level of care.
Providers can access their EHR from anywhere. So even while they’re away at a conference, they can check in on their patients and advise their colleagues.
When electronic records first became mainstream, some providers complained that they were forced to focus on a screen rather than the patient. With AI-powered charting, today’s EHRs have turned that on its head. Providers can give patients their full attention while the technology documents the visit for the chart. After the appointment, completing the chart takes just minutes.
Secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth tools enable providers to see more patients in less time. Not only is this a revenue driver for clinics, it reduces long wait times for patients waiting to see specialists. In some areas of the country, telehealth can reduce the wait for a dermatology appointment from months to weeks.
Integrated image management keeps the records of dermatology, ophthalmology, and plastic surgery patients complete and up-to-date without switching between folders or tools.
A high-quality EHR integrates with all the software a practice already uses, including billing, payments, and practice management. Providers who use Nextech’s specialty-specific EHR can add on a full suite of integrated practice management tools, bringing all the disparate software needs under one digital roof.
Electronic Records Are Safe and Secure – for Patients and Their Data
When implemented and used correctly, a powerful EHR improves patient safety and data security.
Typically, reports of security problems related to EHRs are due to poorly trained users or low-quality software. Many of the complaints one can find online are also old; EHR technology has come a long way since pre-pandemic days, and old issues have been resolved.
Nextech offers secure, robust, and user-friendly EHR software designed specifically for dermatology, plastic surgery, ophthalmology, orthopedics, and med spas. Our advanced technology was developed for clinicians by people with clinical experience.
Schedule a demo to see the difference Nextech has made to specialty practices like yours.