The top 5 benefits EMR systems can have when you’re care planning for your patients

Care planning is an essential component of any physical therapist’s day-to-day. It is the process wherein clinicians create and implement a means of meeting the health goals of a patient. The care plan itself is a detailed document that indicates the projected outcome of the process. 

 

The right EMR system, like the ones offered at AgileEMR, can be extremely beneficial for physical therapy practices when care planning for patients. Care plans require constant updating by health care providers, which makes it important to have a top-tier electronic medical records system. A thorough plan incorporates a patient’s health, family history, mental health and other unique individual circumstances. This holistic approach is necessary for the best path to recovery, and a good EMR system is crucial to keep that information up to date.

 

What are some basic care planning procedures?

 

An EMR system can effectively enhance basic care planning procedures. Here a just a few of the different components of the process:

 

• Agreeing on the individual’s goals — One of the first basic care planning procedures is agreeing on the kinds of goals the patient would like to achieve. For example, wanting to increase strength and flexibility, or preventing further injury.

 

• Providing relevant information — During the planning process, it’s important for the care provider to provide relevant and timely information that could affect the patient during the length of the process.

 

• Forming an initial care plan — This care plan is a preliminary outline, and will likely be frequently updated throughout the process. 

 

• Agreeing on a review date — This step is important for both the patient and the physical therapist, because it allows for both parties to establish a time that the information in the care plan can be looked over and updated if necessary.

 

What are some features of the AgileEMR system?

 

For years, health care practices and hospitals of all types have used similar EMR systems. While these systems have helped improve patient experience for many health care facilities, we found that the needs of therapists in particular were not being met.

 

Physical, occupational, and speech therapy practices or departments don’t need a one-size-fits-all system. They need a therapy EMR system designed specifically for their needs. This is what we aim to do with AgileEMR.

 

• Documentation — Documentation is notorious for being time consuming. AgileEMR makes it easier for physical, occupational and speech therapists to document a patient’s journey without spending a considerable amount of time navigating complex tabs or combing through paperwork.

• Task management — Our task management package includes clinical and clerical work queues, the ability to view assigned tasks by individual or group, built-in regulatory and compliance rules, and progress notes.

• Scheduling — Complicated EMRs can lead to scheduling conflicts or oversights that negatively affect the patient’s experience. Our system is easy to learn and quick to navigate.

 

• Customizable templates and management — We provide both corporate- and clinician-specific templates, unlimited tailored protocol templates around body regions, and clinician- or physician-specific approaches.

 

• Reporting — AgileEMR is built to support multiple clinics and hospital outpatient facilities, which allows for centralized reporting.

 

How can these features help with physical therapy patient care planning?

 

• Affirming the patient’s and therapist’s mutual comprehension — An important piece of the care planning process is ensuring that both the patient and the therapist agree to the details of the plan. Using an EMR system to document shared understanding allows for a practice to avoid legal trouble and in some severe cases, even injury.

 

• Making recording assessments easier — Another benefit of an EMR is that it allows for therapists to document assessments during a session and store the assessments in an accessible and organized system.

 

• Ensuring medical record compliance — An electronic medical records system aids with task management, specifically in ensuring medical record compliance. AgileEMR has built-in regulatory and compliance rules in its system.

 

• Keeping patient profiles up to date —Keeping patient profiles updated is extremely important for a practice, which is interwoven into AgileEMR’s task management and reporting features.

 

• Keeping up with changes in medications and treatments — Ensuring that medications and treatments are up to date is also important to manage at your practice, and this kind of reporting is a feature supported by AgileEMR’s system.

 

Interested in learning more? Listen to our podcast!

 

AgileEMR is a proven practice management software solution designed for therapists by therapists. We officially launched our software in 2013 to address the pain points that physical therapists and clinicians often run into with generic clinical EMR systems: None of them were designed specifically with physical therapy in mind. We worked closely with physical therapists when developing our physical therapy software to ensure that it meets the demands of this unique field of health care. Since our launch, AgileEMR has been used in more than 1 million patient cases by both large and small providers in the outpatient therapy and hospital rehabilitation sectors.

 

If you’re the owner of your own physical therapy practice and you’re researching EMR systems for your care planning needs, look no further. We have the right electronic medical records system for you. Contact our team today for more information or to schedule a demo to see how we can help your practice.