Home Forums Discussions General Discussion AC for only MU purposes

Our current system for the past 6 years has been working very well for us. We would never switch if we did not have to. Are there many practices that combine their current workflow, either manual or some sort of electronic system with Amazing Charts, just to meet MU criteria?
Example would be to log in Demographics and during the visit use AC for Problem List, Vitals, ERx, and any other MU items. Our existing system to document the visit. This may require some duplicate entry but seems doable and quicker for the Dr. in the room with a patient. Since our current system stores all results in a database, such as labs, diagnostic studies, problem list, other consultant reports, and not as attachments, this allows selecting a date range when writing a patient note and prints out all of their results with a letter.
Any input would be appreciated since we are trying to incorporate AC the best we can and still be productive and patient centered.

I think you could do this. The entry of the doctor's note electronically is not required for the 1st year of MU; you could stay with transcription or your present system. There would be a lot of double entry, as you mentioned.

You could do this for stage 1 MU.
However in stage 2 and later in stage 3 it will be more important to document more things about patient care and using patient portals to access CCD information. Entering diagnoses for the disease state databases that are tracked (i.e. diabetes, htn, obesity, tobacco addiction) will become more important. using it to track health maintenance items (ie. colonoscopy, tobacco cessation counseling, mammography, etc) will also become more important.

Quite frankly, I see keeping a separate dictation system as much MORE work than just using AC as the EMR. For clarity, I am not judging an office's decision to keep two different systems. It just doesn't make sense to do so however. Especially using AC's ability to set templates, an office could only speed up documentation by using AC's features.

Peter,
I think the short answer is "yes, technically you can use AC to obtain MU without recording the notes themselves in AC". A lot will depend on exactly how much you enter. It will be a challenge. For example, meeting the cqm's may present some problems.

All of us who use AC made some changes, or you might call them "sacrifices" in our workflow to get here. Often the changes are small and trivial; sometimes they seem more fundamental. From your series of questions, it sounds like you have set up a database that works well for you and your doc, and you are reluctant to give it up. A parallel system where you run that and AC will work for you, but will likely involve substantial duplication of effort. I would suggest that you continue to work towards modifying your workflow to allow you to use AC alone, as that will ultimately be more efficient. Perhaps if you share more details, users here can help find ways to mitigate the sacrifices of a full transition. Personally, I hate double entry of anything!

You really don't have to. The question is is the money you would received worth the headache it involves. The second question (actually probably the first or "zeroth, since the other is the first) is where do you see the practice in 3-4 years. If you see still using your current database system, it may well not be warranted.

If you foresee transitioning over to AC (or any other system for that matter) then the changes you will need to make to incorporate AC will be inevitable and the cost will be incurred. You might as well go for the money.

Doing both is double work, but you get to keep your current flow with a known system. You could then start saving the old system info into AC over time if you are going to transition.

If you are NOT going to transition, the question is simply is MU Stage 1 worth the effort. You will not be able to do this with Stage 2 unless more work is involved, and at that point AC becomes your main system.

Thanks for all of your responses. Friday we had a long one on one session with Mark at AC. He did clarify some of the issues we were having with the workflow. Our main issues was determining when all results were back and how to write a note to the patient. The documentation of the encounter may take some getting use to and we will attempt to use some templates that may make it doable in Amazing Charts. If we can get where we feel comfortable with the encounter, then I am certain that all the great things in AC will make it economical to switch entirely to AC. Great to hear that MU can be met even without using all features in AC.