I was pretty struck by the title of a session at the upcoming HIMSS 2022 conference in Orlando, “Papercuts don’t have to hurt: How to gain physician adoption.” It’s happening Wednesday, March 16th at 4:45–5:05pm in the Spotlight Theater, booth #8240. Janell Goff, RT, Project Manager at Singing River Health System, and Dessiree Paoli, Solutions Manager, Interlace Health, are the presenters.
You wouldn’t think we’d still be talking about EHR optimization and removing paper from healthcare, but paper remains a common challenge.
I’m interested to hear what Singing River Health System shares in this session as they had physician’s adopt Epic integrated digital forms. In my experience, many people have thrown a blind eye to the impact paper forms still have on a healthcare organization. Whether it’s the intake forms or forms in the exam room the patient needs to complete and sign, paper is still far too prevalent in healthcare. No wonder they worry about papercuts.
No doubt companies like Interlace Health have been at the forefront of providing great technology solutions to these problems. Whether you’re looking to do eForms, eSignature, or other workflow technology, the maturity of solutions in this space is quite incredible. Interlace Health, for example, will be celebrating their 30th anniversary in 2022 and rolling out an exciting new platform that provides innovative ways to improve staff workflows, added features to strengthen data collection, enhanced EHR integrations, and fully-cloud hosted options. If you plan to be at HIMSS, be sure to stop by their 30th anniversary happy hour celebration on Tuesday from 4-6 PM. You can find more details here.
Interlace Health will also have 5 in-booth presentations discussing this problem. What I find particularly interesting about the challenge of paper in healthcare and the move to digital forms and signatures is the importance of workflow. Far too many people don’t realize how integrated digital forms and eSignature companies are with EHR vendors. If you’re using a form solution that doesn’t have a deep integration with your EHR, what are you doing? Not knowing how deeply integrated a third party digital form solution can be with your EHR is another reason many people haven’t gone this direction.
If you want to see what I mean when I talk about deep EHR integration, go and schedule a meeting with Interlace Health at HIMSS22 (I’m sure they’re happy to do it virtually as well). If education on eForms, eSignature, and improved EHR workflow isn’t enough, those who schedule a demo prior to HIMSS will also get a $25 Starbucks gift card and are entered to win a Xebec (These are awesome!) which adds 2 screens to your laptop.
We all understand that when you roll out an EHR, you can’t roll everything out at once. EHR optimization is an effort that may never end. However, one of the best optimizations one can do for their organization is to move to electronic forms and signatures. If you haven’t looked at these solutions lately, you’ll be surprised how much better the workflow is for your organization and how far the technology has come.
