Disruptive Change

Electronic Health Records

By Cutright Elizabeth on Sep 12, 2016 in Technology

Adoption of electronic health records in assisted living is a disruptive change worth implementing declares Senior Housing Business magazine. 

As Eric Taub points out in a recent article for Senior Business News, assisted living communities have dragged their feet for too long, many still stubbornly relying on paper notes and other “low-fi.” record keeping. While these facilities have been able to limp along so far, Taub argues that “going high-tech is no longer an option. It’s not a case of simply providing a perk for residents but rather becoming a necessity to stay financially viable.”

“That’s because the model of the assisted living industry is changing,” he writes, “Moving from a social framework with a medical conscience to a medical model with a social conscience.”

The first step, according to Taub, involves adopting EHR and EMR systems, but implementation should follow a thorough understanding of the processes, procedures and costs.

“While EMRs may be an obvious solution to more accurately tracking resident health and coordinating care with other providers, the implementation of such a systems is not,” explains Taub. “Assisted living communities face significant obstacles in switching their pen-and-paper based medical records to an electronic version.”

“Change is hard,” admits Taub, “especially one as fundamental as introducing technology to a formerly analog world.”

Tom McDermott, Vice President of Sales for Yardi Senior Living agrees, telling Taub that for many senior living communities, technology is not a priority.

“Most people would rather get a root canal than change software,” he says, pointing out that facility managers and administrators often juggle many duties and  struggle to prioritize their strategies.

Nevertheless, Taub believes resistance is futile – soon assisted living communities will have no choice.

“Baby boomers will demand it,” Life Care Services’ EMR director for Life Care Services Susan Adams, tells Taub. “I wouldn’t move into a community that didn’t have the technology I was used to using.”

When Life Care Services decided to make the switch from paper-based record keeping to an EMR product provided by Yardi Systems, the benefits were clear.

“Government regulations won’t directly affect us,” Adams explains to Taub. Additionally, Adams believes “the more we can demonstrate our care is standardized, and we can pull information from our system to give local hospitals, the more likely they are to partner with us. That’s important to our bottom line.”

As for the 90 day implementation process, Adams has no regrets. “I’d absolutely do this again,” she tells Taub.

“I don’t know how we ever got by without it. EMRs are a great tool to capture discrete data that allows us to do evidence-based work, enabling us to prove that we gave this care and why.”

You can read more of Taub’s article here.