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The ABCs of Back to School — for Patients and Practices

15 August 2024
Blog

eClinicalWorks

Apples, colored pencils and books on top of a desk

They are the three little words that students and teachers nationwide (and some medical practices) dread: Back to school!

OK, not everyone dreads school once they’re there. You get to see your friends again and you’re soon back into familiar, productive routines. But the back-to-school season does bring challenges for families, who often find themselves scrambling to make sure their children have all the vaccinations and permission forms they need ahead of that first day of classes.

And that can mean a hectic few weeks for medical providers, as well, particularly family medicine and pediatric practices who provide care to lots of young people.

Turning a busy season into an opportunity

But busy times don’t have to be filled with stress. Whether you’re a student or a medical practice, the right approach can turn this busy season into one of self-assessment, opportunity, and growth.

OK, you may be thinking that that sounds nice, but where are you supposed to begin?

We suggest you remember your ABCs. We’re not suggesting you review the alphabet, of course. Rather, think of the following as a checklist for assessing how your practice is doing on the most fundamental aspects of care delivery.

For each of the letters A, B, and C, we offer three areas where you and your colleagues might want to perform a self-evaluation to make sure that you are making the most of your resources, including your healthcare IT solutions and staff and provider time.

But first…

Three tips before the main lessons

One: You don’t have to “finish the book.” Remember, very few school classes get through all the material laid out in the syllabus each year. Similarly, if your practice has time to get to only a few of the following items this fall, that’s OK. Pick one or two to start and do the best you can.
Two: You don’t have to be perfect. Practices often see others achieve stupendous results with limited resources and feel terrible because they aren’t there yet. Better to compare your performance to your own history. Striving for steady, incremental improvements is a more sustainable approach and will yield outstanding results over time.
Three: Don’t be afraid to delegate. The most important asset for any medical practice is its human capital. Trust the folks you work with, give them responsibility for specific projects, and empower them to come up with creative solutions to challenges that may arise.

A is for access, actionable insights, and AI

Access to patient data: Having the patient data you need at the point of care is the first and arguably most important step in medicine. Summertime is vacation time, and many of your patients have been traveling near and far. Some may have gotten sick or injured. Your providers need to have ready access to the latest information about your patients and the care they may have received elsewhere.

That means reviewing your current interoperability solutions. With the PRISMA health information search engine, you can gather information on each patient from all available sources and make it available at the providers’ fingertips. That ensures they are aware of any medications or therapies that may be in place.

Checklist: Is PRISMA enabled at your practice and do staff know how to use it?

Actionable insights: Having complete patient is a great first step, but knowing what to do with that information is essential.

eClinicalWorks offers dozens of dashboards and analytics that can measure key performance indicators, help you sort your patients by condition and status, and direct your outreach efforts to those most in need of care. That can make a huge difference when you’re trying to achieve full vaccination compliance, for example. (Those same tools are great for reaching your adult patients, as well.)

Checklist: Is your practice making full use of data analytics dashboards available to you as part of your eClinicalWorks EHR?

Artificial intelligence (AI): AI has been around in one form or another for some time, but still qualifies as the new kid in school. Some practices (and patients) may still be hesitant about AI, fearing that it may be taking the personal, human touch out of medicine, but there’s no cause for alarm.

We’ve put a little bit of AI into many of our products and services, but always with the goal of helping human providers practice the art of medicine more easily.

Tools such as Robotic Process Automatic for Revenue Cycle Management, Sunoh AI medical scribe for faster and accurate documentation, and the healow AI-Powered No-Show Prediction Model to help keep your schedules full rely on artificial intelligence while giving humans the last word on billing, Progress Notes, and appointment calendars.

Checklist: Is your practice making using AI-powered solutions such as RPA for RCM, Sunoh.ai for documentation, and healow no-show prediction for scheduling?

B is for back to basics, back office, and balance

Doctor Typing on Laptop At Desk

Back to basics: Just as students regularly review the basics of a topic, it makes sense for your practice to be sure everyone has a basic knowledge of your EHR. And healthcare IT is a dynamic product.

Even the most knowledgeable users can benefit from learning about the new options and improvements eClinicalWorks has to offer. Innovation, after all, is at the heart of what we do.

eCW University offers our clients a wealth of free educational and training resources — available anytime. And you can always get answers to the challenges your practice faces by visiting our customer support portal, my.eclinicalworks.com, or reaching out to your Strategic Account Manager.

Checklist: Are your staff comfortable using eCW? Are they taking advantage of free webinars and the my.eclinicalworks.com customer portal?

Back office matters: With all those students and families coming to your front desk it can be easy to forget that your back office plays a vital role in the success of your practice.

The back office handles many functions that are critical for the financial sustainability of your practice, including billing and coding, claims processing, data entry, and more.

Again, eClinicalWorks has back-office solutions, notably options for Revenue Cycle Management that can reduce costs and help practices achieve better than 98% first-pass acceptance rates with claims submissions.

Checklist: Are your RCM operations in good shape? Are you struggling with collections, high days in accounts receivable? Are you paying too much for a third-party service when eClinicalWorks can help?

Balance: Because your office is so busy, particularly during the back-to-school season, it can be easy to lose sight of the need for providers and staff to maintain a healthy work/life balance. Sometimes, caregivers are so busy tending to the needs of others they neglect their own physical and mental health.

eClinicalWorks, healow, and Sunoh have many solutions to help practices save time and make the most of their resources. These include check-in solutions that ease the burden on the front office, Sunoh’s AI medical scribe to save time on documentation, and outreach and follow-up campaigns to make sure patients’ needs are being met.

But the first step is to take time to survey providers and staff. Determine whether any are showing signs of burnout or working more hours than they should or need to. Once the scope of the problem is defined, it becomes easier to identify and implement solutions that improve work/life balance. Even getting work done at the office and leaving on time each day can provide a big boost to morale.

Checklist: Are your providers and staff exhibiting signs of burnout? Take time to survey the people who work at your practice, then identify and implement solutions to reduce work burdens and save time that they can call their own.

C Is for colds, COVID, and campaigns

Doctors Hand Touching Blocks with Medical Icons on them

Colds and other common ailments: The return to school inevitably brings an uptick in colds and other common illnesses as children gather, mix, and spend lots of hours in close proximity to one another. Laws required, of course, that children obtain their vaccinations before returning to school, and eClinicalWorks has everything your practice needs.

Whether you’re a pediatric practice, family medicine clinic, or health center, the opening of a new school year inevitably means an influx of patients with sneezes, sniffles, and symptoms. Separating the common cold from more serious conditions requires a trained eye and the kind of careful and caring observations that take place during office visits.

For practices today, many of which are facing staff shortages, help of any kind is welcome. And one of the best aids is a powerful, flexible Electronic Health Record that integrates with tools for stronger patient engagement, clear communications, and post-visit follow-up.

To reduce the dangers of COVID-19 transmission, eClinicalWorks developed the contactless healow^® CHECK-IN solution. By clicking a text message link, patients can confirm appointments, fill out questionnaires, update demographics and insurance, make copayments, and more.

Checklist: Has your practice enabled healow CHECK-IN? Are you doing everything you can to make sure your patients are protected as much as possible against illness?

COVID-19 and more serious challenges: Most of the time your practice will see and treat common, self-limiting conditions such as colds and sniffles. But as the COVID-19 pandemic illustrated, there is always the potential for a more serious threat, even a previously unknown one.

And every year brings flu season, which can range from mild to severe across a population but may pose a serious threat to individuals with compromised immunity or pre-existing health conditions.

Through eClinicalMessenger, you can send automated flu shot reminders to your patients via voice, text, email, and Patient Portal. The campaign reduces the administrative burden on your office staff while improving compliance and promoting better health.

And eClinicalWorks keeps clients up to date on the latest products and services that we develop in response to changing conditions, from contactless check-in solutions to dozens of outreach campaigns that can be tailored to your practice’s needs.

Checklist: Is your practice using eClinicalMessenger to reach out to your patients and make sure they are able to get flu shots?

Campaigns of all kinds: Vaccine reminders and flu shot campaigns are popular outreach efforts every fall and winter, but eClinicalMessenger has dozens of available campaigns that can help your practice with outreach to every portion of your patient population.

Your practice can reach out to patients by provider, facility, or visit type. From annual checkup reminders to sending secure lab results or statements, eClinicalMessenger offers practices dozens of ways to improve efficiency and patient satisfaction.

Checklist: Is your practice making full use of eClinicalMessenger to identify and target patients in need of checkup reminders or other outreach and communications?

Pick one or two topics and get started

Remember: You can’t necessarily get to everything on your fall to-do list, but it is important to begin. Pick one or two of the most important tasks for your practice and patients and make sure providers and staff understand how to use the healthcare IT tools that are appropriate for that task.

This fall is a great time to make sure your practice is employing these highly cost-effective tools as a means of freeing your human resources to focus on direct patient care.

Whatever your needs this fall, you can always start by reaching out to your Strategic Account Manager, visiting my.eclinicalworks.com, or contacting sales@eclinicalworks.com for more information about the many products and services we offer.