The No-Hassle Guide to EHR Implementation

The road to real electronic health records (EHR) success encompasses many new challenges.

The No-Hassle Guide to EHR Implementation delivers the guidance and tools you'll need to master the concerns that block the path to a successful implementation. You’ll find advice and strategies to help you:

• Walk project managers through implementation with advice that ensures record completeness and accuracy
• Introduce key staff not as close to the new system as its users to the complexity of EHR implementation and secure their buy-in
• Harness changing technology while you analyze your organization's specific needs with an EHR, such as storage technology and types of human/computer interfaces

In addition, this edition provides:

• Attention to specific processes and workflows for CPOE,
• E-MAR/BC-MAR, and point-of-care charting
• Advice to implement systems that aid exchange of data among providers and with patients

No-Hassle advice you can trust

Written in plain-English with practical, user-friendly guidance, The No-Hassle Guide to EHR Implementation has even more tools to make your own EHR implementation a success.

This book is the third piece of your EHR foundation written by EHR guru Margret Amatayakul to help healthcare information management leaders launch an effective EHR program. In her first edition, Electronic Health Records: Strategies for Implementation, she laid the foundation for your EHR efforts, with advice to draft a comprehensive project plan, prepare infrastructure, and train staff. Amatayakul followed with the No-Hassle Guide to EHR Policies, which included 26 policies to help hospitals set the foundation for their EHR programs.

Pressure from Capital Hill to your own back yard

There is political emphasis on EHRs from both The White House–where President Bush made EHRs a priority–and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS gave a nod of support to the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT), which certifies ambulatory EHR products and is in the process of tackling certification for hospitals. Facilities who have already made the switch are now showing hard performance improvement data.

Managing health information electronically, at the point of care, provides a greater level of patient safety, leads to more efficient work practices, reduces expenses, and keeps the clinical staff in closer touch with patients–not at a desk writing notes into a paper record that later must be transcribed for coding and billing. Electronic records make it easier–and faster–to share patient information between departments, and put the most recent notes about the patient’s care at the clinician’s fingertips.

In short, EHRs are a priority at every level, and you will have little choice but to accept the need, prepare for the transition, and embrace the challenge.

Meet the Author

Margret Amatayakul, MBA, RHIA, CHPS, CPHIT, CPEHR, FHIMSS, is president of Margret\A Consulting, LLC of Schaumburg, IL, and cofounder and member of the board of examiners of Health IT Certification. She has more than 35 years experience advancing electronic health records, conducts training programs, and writes extensively to help achieve clinical transformation through IT adoption. She is a member of the editorial board of advisors of the monthly newsletter Electronic Health Records Briefing, the author of HIPAA Made Simple and Guide to HIPAA Auditing, Electronic Health Records: Strategies for Implementation, and The No-Hassle Guide to EHR Policies, all from HCPro, as well as titles for the American Health Management Association, American Medical Association, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, and Medical Group Management Association.

• Books

• Other Health Information Management Products
• Other Special Discounts Products