Electronic Health Records For Dummies

Deciding when to stop pulling charts

Approximately two weeks prior to go-live, the preloading workflow should shift focus to the patient appointment schedule for the first few weeks of go-live. Because preloading starts before go-live, information generated between the preload and the go-live will need to be entered in the paper chart and the EHR. For example, if a patient has an office visit or medication change/refill between the preloading of that patient’s chart and the EHR go-live, the information will reside in the patient’s paper chart, but you also need to enter the updated information into the EHR.

Undoubtedly, there will be patient visits during and soon after go-live for which data has not been preloaded into the EHR. Set a policy to determine whether the physician will enter this information during the encounter (which affects productivity) or the chart will be preloaded immediately before or after the encounter.

When you go-live, the front office staff will still pull the paper charts for each scheduled patient. This is often referred to as the hybrid period. In about 2–6 months after go-live, physicians should notice that preload information is available for the majority of patients and that clinicians are no longer referencing the patient chart for the majority of patient encounters. Another approach is to pull charts for the first 2–3 visits for a patient after EHR ...