The following is a guest article by Joanna Sobran is President and CEO of MXOtech.
The volume and variety of healthcare data is on the rise. Underpinned by pandemic pressures, the adoption of telehealth services grew to 38 times pre-COVID levels over the past two years, in turn, creating a need for patients and physicians to access critical medical information on demand.
Despite this technological shift, however, many medical staff members are still doing manual data entry. Recent research found that between 26% and 39% of healthcare workers are entering data manually. Further, 32% to 40% believe this is partly due to challenges in locating the data they need, when they need it.
That’s not all. In addition to wasted time, manual processes also increase the risk of data entry errors. Here’s a look at what this means for healthcare organizations — and what steps they can take to reduce total risk.
Prognosis: Problematic
What’s the worst that could happen if data entry errors occur? For any industry, lost time and revenue are common. For healthcare, the results could be deadly.
In fact, medical error or accident is the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. While the overall number of these deaths remain low, they outpace those caused by any other accident type. Data entry errors increase the chances of this unfortunate outcome. If doctors or nurses are using inaccurate information, their decisions are negatively impacted.
Other concerns include missing data, such as a test result that isn’t properly entered or uploaded. This can lead to potential treatment problems and reduced productivity as employees must track and eliminate errors before they cause serious issues.
Healthcare organizations must also consider the ongoing impact of compliance. Failing to accurately enter patient data or forgetting to input key results could lead to compliance audits, fines and potential operational sanctions — until processes are in line with due diligence expectations.
The Four-Step Data Treatment Plan
While no two clinics or hospitals are alike, four common steps can help reduce the risk of manual data entry errors:
- Identify key data sources: Not all healthcare data requires the same level of scrutiny and security. For example, while basic patient information — such as name, address and date of birth — should be protected and every effort should be made to ensure accurate entry, small errors here likely won’t result in serious health complications. Information about allergies, test results and medical histories, meanwhile, must always be complete and accurate to assure clinicians can make the best decisions for their patients.
- Automate essential processes: The sheer amount of healthcare data now being created, handled and stored means that even experienced data entry teams can’t keep up with the pace. As a result, it’s critical for companies to deploy automated data collection and entry solutions capable of verifying key information and guaranteeing it’s available to the right staff members at the right time.
- Integrate critical operations: Part of the reason employees are still entering data manually is the use of legacy technologies across the healthcare sector — databases, servers and front-end solutions that are out of date but ingrained into familiar processes. While it may not be possible to completely remove these technologies, it’s worth looking for new tools capable of integrating with existing operations to reduce total complexity.
- Leverage outside assistance: The sheer volume, variety and now velocity of healthcare data created makes it a daunting task to effectively enter and achieve accuracy. Here, HIPAA-certified third-party providers can help organizations find and deploy solutions that work with existing systems to minimize data entry errors.
Delivering on Healthcare Data Potential
More than 90% of hospitals and healthcare providers now use EMR and EHR systems to streamline data management. Simply adopting these systems isn’t enough. Organizations must create and deploy processes that reduce the need for manual data entry and conversion to make best use of these systems and deliver the best care possible.
This starts with data identification and automation and is bolstered by integration with the assistance of a trusted third-party provider. As a result, you gain significantly reduced risk of data entry errors, providing more time for staff to do what matters most: improve patient outcomes.
About Joanna Sobran
Joanna Sobran is President and CEO of MXOtech. Sobran has unique and vast experience in the IT industry. For more than a decade, she has focused on delivering a high-level customer experience with innovation. She has created a niche for MXOtech by approaching each client’s business individually, with creative technology solutions crafted specifically to address its issues. Whether it’s through using better technology solutions, improving operations or education, Sobran treasures her clients and truly cares about their success.
