Dr. William Crump
Boise, Idaho
Family Medicine
“Our Integrated EMR and Practice Management Solution Will Pay for Itself in the First Year – Just in Dictation Cost Savings!”
-Dr. William Crump
St. Luke’s Family Health is a 12-provider, 70-employee family medicine practice that operates in three locations throughout the Boise, Idaho area. The practice used a DOS-based practice management system written in 1985, a system that worked well until HIPAA came along and changed all the rules. Facing the problem of a solution that made it impossible for the practice to become HIPAA-compliant, St. Luke’s began a search for practice management software.
One of the practice’s physicians, Dr. William Crump, was also very interested in electronic medical records (EMR). Having seen an integrated practice management/EMR solution demonstrated at a few different shows, he knew that he had found an EMR that would work, and work well, with a practice management solution and that wouldn’t require interfaces. Among other things, the integrated solution would eliminate the blame game when records or charges got lost in the shuffle. When Dr. Crump and his colleagues looked at the cost of the solution, the price point and the functionality, they realized they could have it all for a very reasonable price.
Every employee of St. Luke’s uses the eClinicalWorks solution in one way or another. While some hesitated retiring their pencils and paper charts for the computer, most found the new technology very easy to use and adopt. Dr. Crump notes that learning to use the hardware was more difficult than learning to use the software.
“The software is pretty easy to use and is easily customized through templates. It’s point-and-click with web links and icons,” says Dr. Crump. “The harder part was saying to the staff, ‘Here’s a tablet, here’s how you use it and this is how you sign onto a wireless network.’”
It’s a solution easily rectified by practicing with the hardware before going live with a new software solution, he says. The ability to customize software, on the fly, means that while templates handle the workload, physicians build relationships with their patients. A program that offers flexibility and ease-of-use is transforming the lives of these 12 physicians in Boise, Idaho and the 120 patients they see each day.
The software is so easy because all the information a physician could possibly need before seeing a patient is in the program. For example, if Dr. Crump is the physician on-call, he can call up a patient from home and immediately view when the patient was last seen, what prescriptions he takes, etc. He can then speak to the patient and send one of his partners a message or a phone encounter, right to his inbox, so that when he comes in Monday morning, he can manage his patient. In this way and many others the solution helps the practice with continuity of care. Lab tracking and database management are also distinct advantages, as is the ability to run reports to see trends or quickly view previous patient visits.
Not only is the software easy to use but it pays for itself in a very short amount of time. Last year, Dr. Crump faced $13,000 in dictation costs (the average doctor in the practice had $8,000). Because the program only costs $5,000, St. Luke’s will quickly pay for their new technology, just in saved dictation costs. In his office, using eClinicalWorks has also enabled him to save $50,000 in employee time through the elimination of two front-office positions.
Aside from making it easier for physicians to spend more quality time with their patients, eClinicalWorks enables its users to communicate with other users through the independently run ecwusergroup.com.
“It’s absolutely phenomenal. No other program has this,” notes Dr. Crump. “The user group allows people to communicate. We have open access to trade ideas, improve our efficiency and work on problems. If there are issues to overcome, eClinicalWorks immediately addresses them. I don’t have to call a sales person or wait for the next upgrade. That support and comfort level, knowing someone’s always there to help me, is huge.”
St. Luke’s physicians aren’t the only ones who benefit from an integrated EMR/practice management solution: patients notice a difference too. They have their concerns addressed and messages returned faster than ever before and now spend more time with their physicians who no longer have to take the extra time to write out chart notations or draft prescriptions – it’s all electronic. After all, physicians don’t want to spend their time documenting visits. Now they don’t have to.
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