“In selecting a vendor, we were deliberate and careful with our process,” says Dr. Teresa Marts, a physician with Family Practice Associates in Winner, South Dakota. “We took the time to identify the goals that were most important to us and decided these areas included better workflow, especially around phone calls and nurses’ activities; the ability to create meaningful reports; and a system that was user friendly. Honestly, making the change to an EHR wasn’t something any of us looked forward to. We were nervous our clinic could come to a grinding halt, and we didn’t feel that was an option. We decided that selecting MMIC Health IT to install NextGen and provide our ongoing IT support needs would get us the closest to our vision for the clinic.”
“Some of the specific features in NextGen we really liked were the MasterIM page where everything is accessible from the one page. We liked having a basic summary where we could access our medlist, previous visits, just about anything. We also thought the reporting capabilities were what we were looking for.”
Even though the practice was ready to move to an EHR and everyone was looking forward to the increased efficiencies electronic records would provide, the process of getting there was daunting. In fact, the practice admits that many of the benefits of implementing the EHR weren't anticipated. “Printing off patient education materials, the well- child templates, medication list – we didn't know how much we would use them. Now the nurses love being able to share information such as progress notes to other clinics – right after we see the patient. We also didn’t realize how much we would love being able to fax directly from the EHR. There have been other unexpected benefits, too: Today, the phones no longer ring off the hook while we search all over the clinic to locate charts. In addition, H&Ps are becoming much faster because we have an intact problem list, plus our charting can be done from home and we can answer phone call messages from anywhere outside the office, which is a huge benefit,” adds Dr. Marts.
Dr. Mary Carpenter, a physician with the group, admits to having strong opinions about how the implementation would go. “At the onset, I expected a couple of things. I was pretty adamant that our PT encounters would continue to look exactly the same as prior to implementation. Dee and Beth with MMIC Health IT encouraged us to use the templates provided in NextGen as they thought those were best suited to what we were trying to do, but I was pretty sure that I wanted new templates made. I was wrong about that. We use the standard templates almost exclusively, and they work out great for us. I also had an expectation that we would implement the total EHR at once. Again, MMIC Health IT encouraged us to follow their process and implement in steps. That was the right thing to do, but it was hard for me to see how it would all work once it was fully implemented. Looking back, I think their plan was perfect. The electronic prescribing was definitely a success and I wasn't convinced that I would think that. I also like the fact that even when I am not in the office I am able to keep track of my patients refills, labs, etc. in a real-time fashion. I think that provides better care for my patients. I certainly feel that MMIC Health IT provided us with great service. It was great to have one point of contact in Dee throughout the implementation – we knew her and she knew us.”
In the end, Dr. Marts says,“We liked the staff at MMIC because we felt they were downto- earth and made our time line and the implementation process understandable. We always felt like MMIC Health IT was there when we needed them. We’re not in Minneapolis so we feared the lack of a local team would be problematic, but they were very responsive to us and continue to be. We staggered our approach so that each of us began using the system on different days, and the whole process did go much smoother than we anticipated, which was a great unexpected success.” The practice does anticipate being able to meet meaningful use criteria and do additional reporting from the EHR. Plans are in place to achieve those goals.