10.3 Restrictions on EMR data
While longitudinal patient health data from EMRs is a rich resource, it is not without its drawbacks. The practitioner gathers clinical EMR data for the benefit of patient treatment. To make the data fit for purpose, they need to be critically reviewed and cleaned, just like any other data being utilised for a secondary purpose. The ability to obtain useful data from EMRs is restricted in three key ways. The variability of data entry, such as the various locations where patient information is inputted into the EMR, is the first restriction (for example, smoking history may be entered as social history, a risk factor or as part of the encounter note). Managing the billing process accurately is not easy as providers might face hurdles in revenue cycle management. Moreover, Net Collection Rate below 95% shows that your practice is facing troubles in the billing process. To eliminate all these hurdles and maintain your NCR up to 96%, MedsIT Nexus Medical Coding Services are around the corner for you so that your practice does not have to face a loss.Another illustration is the variety of ways doctors might describe whether a patient smokes or not. To address this, CPCSSN has created a standard coding to show whether the patient smokes now, has smoked in the past, or has never smoked. Additionally, the background disease coding in some electronic record systems is superior to that in others. Since the network does not anticipate the practitioner to code any data, we must perform it in the background. Data managers have created synonym lists that are all tagged to ICD9 code "250" for diabetes mellitus if a practitioner uses abbreviations like "DM", "T2DM," or "Diab" for the diagnosis of diabetes mellitus. Data that is challenging to code or analyse, such scanned papers or encounter notes, is the second restriction. The third drawback is that some of the information required for population study or surveillance is either absent or poorly represented (for example, important risk factors and modifiers of chronic disease, such as ethnicity, education and income). Providing a more structured data entry form with less free text and selecting an EMR that can communicate with other electronic systems (such as those in hospitals, laboratories, and imaging) can help solve these issues and allow for the direct storage of as much clinical data in the EMR as is practical. The continual process of data cleansing by CPCSSN data managers has taken many hours in order to improve the quality of the data.
The representativeness of patients, practises, and primary care health professionals in the use of CPCSSN data for disease surveillance in Canada is a problem. This has been evaluated by CPCSSN, and the data does represent the population that visits primary care practises even though it is not representative of the general Canadian population (Queenan 2016). Less young to middle-aged males and more senior patients are found in the CPCSSN data. The practitioners are younger than the general population of primary care physicians, only use electronic medical records, and have a higher proportion of female patients. Additionally, fewer foreign medical graduates are included. MedsDental is a renowned Dental Billing Company in the united states, equipped of the revenue cycle experts who are highly proficient in delivering fast and the error-free billing services to the dental practices by using the cutting edge technology.
A variety of input metrics may be used in the challenging process of choosing the best EMR vendor. Each healthcare facility may have its own set of standards for determining whether a particular EMR vendor is the best option. However, there are a few crucial elements in the procedure for reaching that conclusion. Prior to purchasing an EMR system, it is important to identify and define the system needs. The possible vendor might not be the best option for a healthcare institution if the offered solution does not meet basic system requirements. The second crucial step is researching possible suppliers and requesting proposals via a request for proposals procedure. The final crucial stage before starting to plan the EMR installation and eventually working with the vendor after system "go-live" is choosing the ideal vendor and negotiating the final contract.