For about a year now, I’ve been working on a new project to develop and support the growth of the company mClinical Technology (a client of Intersect Advisers).mClinical Technology launched a product that is changing the way physicians and their staff interact with electronic health records (EHR) software.

Right now, I’m watching a trend around population health mobile applications giving patients new tools to monitor their health conditions. Patients can now schedule appointments, review post-visit instructions, and exchange messages with their physicians while logging their daily steps on their activity trackers. Their health information is right at their fingertips.

On the other hand, physicians are tethered to desktops, workstations, laptops, files, and stable Internet connections. When EHRs were created, technology experts focused on a comprehensive solution to meet the required documentation mandates rather than getting to know the end user – the physicians.  Doctors are spending additional time configuring templates within their EHRs to prepare for their patient encounters, or organizing the information before it is stored within the system post-patient visit. This has resulted in the loss of productivity over time and even more significant financial loss.

In a recent study, internal medical residents documented 112 hours per mouth on 206 electronic records, which is equal to five hours per day for 10 patients’ records. Respectively, physicians are spending more than 50 percent of their day entering data; and consequently, this has limited the number of patient encounters each day.

At what point did doctors become data-entry specialists? They devote their careers to taking care of their patients, yet they spend more time inputting information rather than focusing on patients in the exam room.  It’s time for the healthcare industry to shift its focus toward finding solutions to optimize the efficiencies of doctors.

Mobile optimization is not about simply making the EHR fit within a smaller screen. Whether it is on a computer, tablet or smartphone, being strained to click, type, and drag screens, or pay a third-party to manage the data collection impedes on productivity efficiencies.  The outcomes are documentation mistakes and delayed responses; thus, upsetting the reporting and revenue management cycles with inaccurate data and a loss of reimbursements.

Mobile optimization should be focused on evaluating the end-user experience to understand their methodologies, and as a result, IT professionals construct a user-friendly and efficient mobile solution. These mobile solutions consolidate the physicians’ processes during a patient clinical encounter through intuitive interfaces. Develop a product that physicians are eager to use. Produce solutions that provide value to the end user help to achieve the overall goals of the practice group or healthcare system.  Rightly, allowing doctors to be doctors once again.

​​To learn more about mClinical Technology, connect with me to schedule a demonstration, and visit the website, www.mclinicaltechnology.com.