Background
It is challenging to overestimate the significance of electronic health records (EHRs) for various organizations. These instruments are helpful since they promote effective information collection, storage, and processing. The Milestone One assignment has analyzed Alpha and identified characteristic features that its EHR system should have. Thus, the current assignment delves deeper and stipulates that Alpha should use NextGen Office because this technological solution perfectly suits the organization’s needs.
EHR Selection
Alpha should rely on NextGen Office because this EHR offers a few essential benefits for the organization. Firstly, this technology offers better workflows with integrated capabilities and promotes easy-to-use analytics (NextGen, n.d.). These possibilities ensure that Alpha can access advantages that characterize a computerized provider order entry. In particular, the EHR system facilitates interoperability because the former can be connected to major laboratories to provide healthcare professionals with high-quality analytics about patient conditions. These tasks are performed online, which denotes that paper documentation is unnecessary. Secondly, enhanced communication and outreach guarantee that a patient-provider portal can be successfully implemented. This technological solution promotes direct messaging among stakeholders and offers text reminders through a patient portal (NextGen, n.d.). That is why this EHR system perfectly meets Alpha’s needs.
EHR Selection: CMS Regulation
It is necessary to describe how NextGen meets the regulations of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This organization stipulates that EHRs should meet the criteria and standards of structured data created by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS], 2022). According to this regulation, EHRs should satisfy the 2015 Edition certification criteria (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services [CMS], 2022). The Certified Health IT Product List demonstrates that the selected EHR is reliable for Alpha.
EHR Selection: Type of EHR
NextGen is a cloud-based EHR system, denoting that the organization and its employees do not need to host it. Everything they need is to access the technology that is stored on the Internet. This approach is appropriate for Alpha because the organization faces many benefits. Firstly, Jason (2020) typically admits that such solutions are mostly cost-effective, which is attractive for every medical institution. Secondly, cloud-based EHRs have improved security because specialized firms protect a cloud (Jason, 2020). Thirdly, such solutions perfectly promote interoperability and free data exchange because an individual can access them from any location. This description demonstrates that the cloud-based EHR is appropriate for meeting Alpha’s needs.
EHR Selection: Patient-Centered Technology
It is possible to admit that the suggested EHR has features of patient-centered technology. On the one hand, a patient portal is a valid argument to support this statement. This resource indicates that patients can access specific pages where they can find all the information regarding their health and treatment and contact a healthcare professional. On the other hand, since NextGen Office offers better workflows with integrated capabilities, the EHR allows medical workers to find comprehensive data about every particular patient. That is why Alpha should rely on the given technological solution to promote patient-centered services.
EHR Selection: Peripherals
All the applications or peripherals that are designed to maximize the functionality of the EHR should have a specific user interface design. These requirements include locating fields in a logical sequence, including numbers for screens, writing descriptive titles, and ensuring that information is easy to read (Chapter 5, n.d.). Furthermore, the pages should have soothing colors, while contrast is required to highlight key buttons, for example, “Next Page” and “Submit.” These requirements can help create a user-friendly interface design that will be convenient for patients and healthcare providers.
References
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (2022). Certified EHR technology.
Chapter 5. (n.d.). System implementation [PDF document].
Jason, C. (2020). 3 reasons to favor cloud-based EHRs over in-house EHRs. EHR Intelligence.
NextGen. (n.d.). NextGen Office.