Image by Ardfern (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and reported in USA Today earlier this week shows that Medicare deaths, hospitalizations and costs were reduced in the period of time between 1999 and 2013. Lead author Harlan Krumholz describes the findings as, “jaw-dropping.”

Krumholz credits hospitals and their staffs, focus on patient safety, general public health improvements, and new drugs.

What does this have to do with EHRs? It shows the incredible results you can achieve when addressing issues in a complex system.

Just like with Medicare, to be successful you need five important things:

1. The right organizations
2. The right employees
3. Focus on the customer
4. Support from the public
5. New technologies

Despite the seemingly insurmountable complexities of the healthcare system it is still possible to improve outcomes for people.

That’s exactly what we are doing for mental health therapists who use BreezyNotes EHR.

1. There are precious few EHR companies out there built for the success of the therapist. A company offering a software application for any group of people should be organized in a way that is open to feedback and willing to adapt to customer needs. It needs to have a vision that ties in to everything it does.BreezyNotes, for example, can’t “just” build an EHR application for therapists. We need to do it in a way that makes life easier and better for them. You can’t remain successful by offering something that elicits a “well… it’s not the worst…” response.

2. To have a company like that you need the right employees: People who listen to the customer and each other; people who believe in the vision and are able to apply it in all that they do. Ultimately it is the employees of the company that create its success. You’ve heard the phrase, “It takes a village to raise a child.” It’s the same thing with EHR software… if you’re doing it right.

3. The company and the employees are integral, but without focus on the customer, why even start? We developed BreezyNotes EHR because we perceived a need for more intuitive, less frustrating and less complex EHRs for therapists. Young therapists among the “Digital Natives” crowd expect software to “just work.” On the Boomer and even Gen-X side of things, users want an EHR application that is LESS complex than what they are currently doing. No matter what group you fall into, the bottom line is this: Therapists want to do therapy—not paperwork, not billing or accounting, not trudging through a poorly designed EHR system.We know this because we focus on the customer. We focus on the needs of the therapist (after all BreezyNotes was founded by one). EHR systems that don’t do this are easy to spot. They have “behavioral health modules” or “alternative processes” or they just simply didn’t care enough to design their product in a way that is as pleasing to look at as it is to use. When it comes to EHRs for therapists, 90% of what a therapist does every day should be made as simple as possible.

4. Of course as we transition to the electronic health record frontier, there has been significant support from the public. There are many groups and organizations whose purpose is to manage the transition of our healthcare system to electronic. Organizations like the MN Behavioral Health Information Collaborative, EHR Loan Programs from the MN Department of Health, websites like HealthIT.gov.

5. Finally, there’s new technologies. Remember “Web 2.0?” That buzzword from the mid-2000s about making websites more than just static information pages? It basically meant that sites on the web became more interactive, more intuitive and more useful to people. From an application standpoint, we are on the cusp of EHR 2.0. The technology exists to make EHRs easier to use and more efficient and intuitive, thereby requiring less training and less technical knowledge (less anxiety is a bonus!).

In this day and age, it’s sometimes unbelievable what can pass as an “EHR system”. Bad design, no expenditure on the user experience, ignorance of the customer’s needs and an overall failure to listen is all too common. Healthcare is already a complex system. Why compound the complexity for those whose job it is keep our country healthy?

If you’re fed up with your EHR or you’re dismayed by the complexity of it all. Send me an email with one sentence on your thoughts. We’ll take 50% off your first paid month if you choose to sign up with BreezyNotes.