EMR and EHR Software Development

In the constantly evolving healthcare landscape, healthcare organizations must leverage technology to improve patient experience, ensure regulatory compliance, and stay competitive. A pivotal technology that holds this promise is EHR software – a digital replacement of paper-based health records. EHR software transforms patient data collection, assessment, and usage methods, improving workflow and patient satisfaction. EHR software development opens doors to many opportunities, but not without challenges and complexities.

In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of custom EHR software development, delve into its key features and benefits, and discuss the challenges you might face on this journey, arming you with the necessary knowledge to navigate this complex landscape.

Overview of EHR System Market

The EHR system is an essential and demanded tool in today’s medical world. Market research by Grand View Research estimated the EHR market at $28.1 billion in 2022 and predicts the sector growth will continue and reach $35.1 billion by 2028.

Despite advancements and improvements in healthcare solutions, the core functions of applications remain consistent. However, many current software solutions fail to meet user expectations, leaving room for improvement.

Approximately 42% of doctors and medical personnel express dissatisfaction with existing EHR software. The pandemic and increased digitalization highlight the urgent demand for enhanced, integrated, secure, and efficient EHR and billing software.

What is an EHR System?

EHRs are real-time, patient-centered health records that make information accessible and secure. They collect and manage patient medical data, allowing healthcare organizations to track and monitor this information to improve patient experience.

EHRs can include:

• Medical history
• Diagnoses
• Medications
• Immunization dates
• Allergies
• Radiology images
• Test results
• Demographic and billing data

An EHR system can also share information with other healthcare organizations. It can include all information from emergency facilities, laboratories, specialists, medical imaging facilities, pharmacies, and workplace clinics – so they are digitally involved in patient experience.

Types of EHR Software Solutions

To select the most suitable EHR software for your organization, you’ll need to understand the categories of EHRs based on features, deployment methods, and the scope of their services.

• On-Premise EHRs: On-premise EHRs are installed on the provider’s servers and managed by their IT staff. They offer customization, data control, and integration with existing systems. However, they demand substantial upfront investment in hardware, software, and expertise, posing challenges for smaller providers.
• Cloud-based EHRs: Cloud-based or SaaS EHRs, hosted on the vendor’s servers and accessed via the internet, require minimal upfront investment with subscription-based pricing. They offer scalability and remote accessibility but may have limited customization and rely on a stable internet connection.
• Integrated EHRs: Integrated EHRs include practice management tools like billing, scheduling, or patient portal software, streamlining administrative tasks, and enhancing data consistency. Integration levels vary among vendors, with additional features potentially increasing costs.

Benefits of EHR Implementation

Choosing the accurate category and following the EHR development process steps can help your organization streamline workflows, enhance competitiveness, and improve overall operational efficiency.

• Enhanced efficiency and productivity: EHRs automate various tasks, including appointment scheduling, order entries, prescription management, and billing, freeing time for staff to focus on patients. EHR software can enhance productivity and prioritize patient interaction over administrative duties.
• Better informed decision-making: EHR software offers healthcare organizations instant access to patients’ medical history, including allergies, medications, diagnoses, and test results. This data empowers evidence-based decision-making, improving patient outcomes—a crucial advantage for startups aiming to excel in patient experience.
• Streamlined care coordination: EHRs enable seamless sharing of patient data among healthcare providers, departments, and institutions, enhancing coordination and continuity of care. For example, a primary care physician can quickly share a patient’s medical history with a specialist, ensuring comprehensive care for patients with complex health conditions.
• Cost savings and financial sustainability: Despite the initial investment, EHR software offers long-term cost savings by minimizing paperwork expenses like printing and storage, preventing duplicate tests, and reducing costly errors.
• Regulatory compliance and quality reporting: Healthcare organizations face strict regulatory demands and rising quality reporting expectations. EHR software, tailored to meet these requirements, aids compliance and streamlines quality reporting. With built-in templates ensuring regulatory standards and automated reminders enhancing care quality, startups can effectively manage regulatory compliance and reporting.
• Enhanced patient engagement: EHR software offers patient portals for easy access to electronic medical records, appointment booking, prescription refills, and provider communication. Empowering patients and boosting engagement.
• Scalability: Healthcare startups demand scalable systems to accommodate their growth. EHR software offers inherent scalability, effortlessly adding users, departments, or locations as needed.

EHR Software Features

EHR software offers many features that streamline clinical workflows and ensure regulatory compliance. Here are the most common features that most EHRs should include:

• Appointment scheduling: This feature enables real-time viewing and editing of provider schedules and appointment reminders, minimizing manual work in a healthcare facility while enhancing the patient experience.
• Patient account: This dramatically improves the patient onboarding process by allowing anyone to sign up for a doctor’s appointment, find prescription information, and check on laboratory updates.
• Electronic medical records: Allows for document medical examinations, including initial assessment, epicrisis, and diary entries, registration of patient diagnoses, and medical appointment registration and archiving of the results.
• Digital document workflows: From patient intake and medical consent forms to various agreements, every step of the client workflow has to be digitized.
• Patient insurance management: Improves the efficiency of working with insurance companies by automating business processes.
• Laboratory accessories: Assists with automating interactions with a laboratory and instantly imports all relevant data to a patient’s medical profile.
• Medical knowledge base: Grants doctors access to updated treatment and diagnostic standards.
• Reporting and analytics: EHRs offer custom report generation and clinical data analysis tools. These support quality improvement, compliance, and strategic decision-making.

EHR Challenges and Solutions

While EHR software streamlines the processes of healthcare facilities, implementing such a system comes with a stack of challenges.

Healthcare Regulation Compliance

Challenge: In healthcare, regulations like HIPAA and GDPR affect EHRs, covering patient privacy, data security, interoperability, and reporting. Navigating these regulations is crucial as non-compliance carries hefty penalties.

Solution: Partnering with experienced custom EHR software development companies adept in regulatory compliance ensures benefits. These vendors build systems that meet regulations and update software as needed. Comprehensive staff training on regulatory compliance minimizes risks.

Interoperability Issues

Challenge: Despite health information exchange standards, EHRs encounter data-sharing issues, resulting in fragmented patient information.

Solution: Choosing an EHR system that complies with interoperability standards like HL7 or FHIR can help. Additionally, collaborations with other healthcare providers and IT vendors can enhance data-sharing capabilities. Policymakers are also playing a part by pushing for more standardized data exchange protocols.

Usability and Training

Challenge: Healthcare providers often find EHR systems difficult to use, leading to decreased productivity and user dissatisfaction. This can be due to overly complex interfaces or workflows that do not match the clinical process.

Solution: Selecting development of a custom EHR software with an intuitive, user-friendly design can mitigate this issue. Additionally, providing comprehensive, ongoing training for all users is crucial to ensure they can utilize the EHR system effectively. Involving end-users in the selection and implementation process can also help ensure the system meets their needs.

Data Security and Privacy

Challenge: EHR systems hold sensitive patient data and are prime targets for cyberattacks. Data breaches can lead to severe legal and financial consequences and harm the organization’s reputation.

Solution: Implementing robust security measures, such as encryption, secure user authentication, and regular security audits, is essential. Training staff on security practices and maintaining up-to-date software can further reduce the risk. Additionally, choosing a reliable outsourcing partner will mitigate any security risks.

High Implementation Costs

Challenge: Developing and implementing an EHR system can be expensive, with costs for software, hardware, training, and maintenance.

Solution: Cloud-based EHR systems often have lower upfront costs and can be more affordable for smaller practices. Additionally, strategic planning and careful budgeting can help ensure a return on investment in the long term.

EHR Implementation Issues

EHR implementation and selection are challenging tasks that require plenty of time, energy, and financial investment. Therefore, it is vital that the program you choose meets all CFM requirements and is developed by an experienced company with a good reputation among marketplace participants.

With correctly implemented EHR system, your company will feature a competitive advantage:

Most hospitals have electronic health records and medical billing software implemented. Despite the widespread adoption, integration challenges still occur, and patients and staff find it challenging to use new software.

To solve this issue, healthcare software providers take special care when developing specific features to enhance and improve the ease of integration and increase the product’s marketability.

Integration with EHR: What a Medical Billing Solution Should Encompass

Billing is a vital part of healthcare services, and having a capable system to manage claim submissions, track medical billing codes, and provide reporting can significantly boost a medical practice’s efficiency.

Sophisticated billing software automates payment documentation and coding, bringing speed to financial operations and reducing tedious manual tasks.

Integration

A primary feature of medical billing software should be a flexible and responsive, integrative interface, that enables financial operations to be immediately streamlined in an EHR system.

Without the capacity to easily integrate with an EHR system, the billing process will be much more complex — that’s the opposite of what it’s supposed to do.

Medical Billing Codes — Tracking & Processing

HCPCS (Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System) and CPT (Current Procedural Terminology) are standard codes crucial in medical billing.

Each service a clinician provides is assigned a specific code, facilitating tracking and processing for billing. These codes also determine the reimbursement amount from health insurers.

According to CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services), coding errors led to nearly $16.73 billion in inaccurate payments in 2019. Therefore, it’s vital for medical billing software to offer compliant, accurate code lists and automate code assignment and processing within the system.

Medical Claims Management

One of the most critical features of medical billing software is the ability to track and process medical claims.

Medical billing software handles submissions, sends alerts in the case of claim denial, sends billing information to rendered parties, handles claim reconciliation, and much more.

This crucial feature should also include the identification of inaccurately assigned code, preferably with an automated response to the issue.

Appointment Scheduling System

All reliable medical billing software needs to have robust scheduling capabilities to simplify the communication process between clinicians and patients.

Having a record of all appointments stored in an easy-to-use interface allows clinicians and patients to keep track of their appointment history and doctor’s notes.

This crucial feature should also include identifying inaccurately assigned code, preferably with an automated response.

Financial Reporting

Access to patient data connected to billing history provides an opportunity for robust financial reporting.

Through intelligent analytics, EHR software can compile patient data and real-time financial reports to provide insight and recommendations on improving the overall patient experience.

What are the Benefits of an Integrated EHR System & a Robust Medical Billing Solution?

By combining integrity with flexibility and security, medical software significantly enhances the quality of patient experience, generates more revenue for medical organizations, and reinforces healthcare workflows.

When designed with reliable and in-demand features and components, EHR systems and/or medical billing software become extremely useful tools for clinicians and patients.

How to Build EHR Software: Step-by-Step

Building an EHR system is a significant initiative involving a combination of strategic planning, technical expertise, user involvement, and regulatory compliance. Here’s a step-by-step guide to developing a robust and effective EHR software system:

Your goals might include improving clinical workflows, enhancing patient care, streamlining billing processes, or achieving regulatory compliance. Be specific and ensure they align with your overall organizational strategy.

Successful EHR system development requires the collaboration of diverse stakeholders. Your team should include clinical staff using the system, IT professionals who understand the technical aspects, administrators who can address organizational needs, and legal experts who can guide on compliance issues.

Spend time understanding the workflows of your intended users. How do they currently manage patient data? What are their pain points? What features would they find most beneficial? User input is crucial to developing an EHR solution that meets the users’ needs.

Your tech stack will depend on various factors, such as your budget, time constraints, and specific functionality requirements. Considerations should also be given to the deployment method, i.e., cloud-based or on-premise, each having its own pros and cons.

When selecting a technology stack, it’s important to choose technologies that have a strong track record and remain relevant in the future. This can save you from needing to redevelop your system down the line due to outdated technology.

EHR systems often need to integrate with other systems such as lab information systems, radiology information systems, and billing systems. Your technology stack should support these integrations.

A few examples of technologies commonly used in EHR software development include:

• Backend Languages: Python, Java, C#, Node.js
• Frontend Frameworks: AngularJS, React, Vue.js
• Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB
• Mobile Development: React Native, Swift (for iOS), Kotlin (for Android)

Anton Kumechko

Project Manager, Glorium Technologies

EHR systems often fail because they’re difficult to use. Work with designers who have experience in the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design, particularly for healthcare applications. The aim should be to create a clean, intuitive interface that simplifies complex workflows and minimizes the potential for user errors.

Develop and integrate essential features, such as patient management, clinical documentation, prescription management, lab integration, health information exchange, billing and coding integration, patient portal, reporting and analytics, appointment scheduling, and interoperability.

EHRs fail because they’re challenging to use. Work with designers with experience in user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design, particularly for healthcare applications. The goal is to create a clean, intuitive interface that simplifies complex workflows and minimizes the potential for user errors.

Implement secure user authentication, data encryption, regular security audits, backup and recovery plans, and other practices to protect the sensitive data stored on EHRs.

Before rolling out your EHR system, conduct rigorous testing to identify and fix any bugs and validate the functionality, performance, usability, and security of the system.

A sudden switch to a new EHR system can be disruptive. Plan a gradual rollout, starting with a pilot group before expanding to the rest of the organization. Provide robust support and training to all users during this transition phase.

How to Choose a Reliable EHR Development Company?

Choosing an Electronic Health Record system (EHR) development company is a strategic decision that can greatly impact the effectiveness of your healthcare services. A competent EHR software development partner can help you deliver high-quality patient care through efficient data management and streamlined operations. However, with numerous vendors in the market, making the right choice can be challenging. Here are some key considerations to guide you in selecting a reliable EHR development company:

Industry expertise: For optimal EHR system development, choose a company with extensive expertise in healthcare. They should thoroughly understand healthcare workflows and regulations to tailor the system to your needs. Evaluate their track record, previous healthcare projects, and grasp of current healthcare technology trends.

Reviews and client testimonials: Client testimonials provide insight into past clients’ experiences with EHR development company, including service quality, meeting deadlines and budgets, problem-solving skills, and more. Visit their website, LinkedIn page, and other sources.

You can find our client’s success stories and testimonials here.

Cost-effectiveness: While ehr software development cost should not be the only determining factor when choosing an EHR development company, it’s undeniably an important consideration. Developing an EHR system is a significant investment, and it’s important to ensure that you’re getting value for your money.

Beware of choosing the cheapest offer, as it may compromise software quality. Opt for a company with transparent pricing matching their service quality. Understand what’s included in the cost, such as development, post-deployment support, maintenance, training, customization, or data migration.

Communication aspects: Communication is an essential aspect of any successful project, and it becomes even more important in complex undertakings like EHR software development. The development company should foster open, transparent, and frequent communication throughout the project.
Consider these communication aspects when selecting an EHR development company: transparency, collaboration, and updates.

By partnering with Glorium Technologies for your EHR software development needs, you can leverage our technical expertise, healthcare IT knowledge, and commitment to quality. Contact us and create an EHR system that truly adds value to your healthcare organization.