GUEST BLOG Increasing MD Demand for EHRs: What's the Uproar About? Part 2

4) Redesign and align processes enabled by technology – across the continuum of care.  Historically, everyone has agreed that redesigning and aligning processes enabled by technology is critical to improved performance. Until accountable care, most technology optimization activities have focused primarily on individual organizations, with occasional efforts to standardize across the integrated delivery network.  The focus now must be shared among owned and affiliated entities to ensure right ‘site of care’, care coordination and patient engagement.  Some industry leaders do not believe that current EHRs are capable of enabling medical home operations as many current systems are geared to individual physician engagement with individual patients, versus the more complex medical home requirements (e.g., health coaches, patient group visits, e-visits and phone consults, and patient self-management tools).  Understandably, successfully merging disparate sites of care using technology will require significantly more complex process redesign.  The importance of these efforts in conjunction with EHR optimization cannot be overstated.

Ted Reynolds is vice president, and Marla Roberts, DrPH, R.N., is solution manager, both at CTG Health Solutions.