Benefit Comparison

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An industry survey reveals these key findings from clinicians: 

• 93% negate that working with an EHR reduces time spent documenting care. 
• 67% respond that using a keyboard and mouse to document within an EHR proved to be a serious impediment to efficiency and therefore an obstacle to adoption. 
• 97% prefer a narrative — rather than structured data entry — as the more valuable resource in treating patients. 
• 96% believe that the patient’s individual story becomes lost using data entry.  

Several studies and publicly available data echo the same observations: 

• The AC Group reports a 73% failure rate of EHRs due to usability. frustrations. "Failure" was defined as not using EHR for 80% of their patients. 
• The group also reviewed 573 charts and found that entering data into the EHR took an average of 9 times longer than dictating a patient encounter.  
• If a healthcare provider sees an average of 20 patients each day, this translates to 180 minutes a day. The result: Providers either will see fewer patients or work longer hours.  

FINDINGS: Documentation is more time-consuming, user adoption is low, and the resulting records are less desirable than narrative text.

Front-end speech recognition, where words are displayed as they are spoken, require the provider to be responsible for engine training as well as editing and signing the document.  

• Even with the latest advancements in speech recognition software, shortcomings can induce errors in the transcribed reports and thus seriously affect the outcome of treatment. 
• In many cases, speech recognition means tethering physicians to a workstation, sometimes a specific workstation, that recognizes their voice. 
• In order for speech recognition to be as accurate as possible, a user must immediately correct the errors made by the software so the program will "learn" the intricacies of the user’s speech patterns. 
• Accuracy rates are touted to range from 70-99%, but even at 99% accuracy documents will require editing to ensure the 1% does not impact patient care. 
• Front-end speech recognition takes considerably longer to use effectively than it does to simply dictate.  

FINDINGS: Software accuracy is unreliable and documentation is more time-consuming when providers are required to edit and "teach" the program.

Provider documentation complements the implementation and utilization of an EHR system.  

A hybrid approach accomplishes documentation goals without affecting physician performance. 

• Capitalizes on dictation, the most efficient means of documenting patient encounters. 
• Narrative documents can be quickly reviewed and distributed to external systems. 
• Supports Meaningful Use requirements by auto-populating EHR data templates with data derived from dictation. 
• Trained medical professionals transcribe documents in a medical transcription platform that integrates closely with EHRs, providing content review and quick turnaround. 

SUCCESSES: Physician productivity is maximized, physician workflow and revenue capacity is retained, and patient encounters are documented comprehensively.