An EHR is an indispensable tool in today’s senior living communities. It provides you with a secure location to store your resident-specific data, including the recording of incidents and accidents. The paperless capability means you don’t have to worry about filing papers or losing important documents.
But recording individual incidents isn’t enough to improve quality of care and help prevent future accidents and falls. Although you’ll have the information you need on a resident’s history, this alone can’t help you improve your quality outcomes. The EHR simply isn’t designed to do this.
So how can you use the data you already have in your EHR to improve quality outcomes and financial performance?
What Your EHR Can — and Can’t — Do
Most long term and acute care communities work hard on fall prevention efforts such as installing grab bars, proper lighting, and group exercise classes to help residents with strength and balance. While these are all worthwhile and effective measures, they aren’t going to give you an edge over the competition, who’s probably doing all the same things.
If you truly want to see an improvement in your fall rates and overall incident numbers, you need to take it a step farther — enhancing the data that’s already in your EHR. Your EHR captures incident data and provides you with a few graphs. But imagine having the capability to do even more with that data, such as:
- Immediately triaging incidents and getting real-time notifications of falls and accidents you need to know about, no matter where you are
- Getting the oversight and expertise of a risk manager who walks you through incidents and provides feedback
- Viewing comprehensive, precise benchmarking and reports to compare your own communities’ and the competition’s quality scores
- Quickly identifying frequent fallers and special focus residents so you can take a proactive approach to incidents
Using Your EHR’s Data for QA Efforts
Although your EHR can’t do these things, you can use ann incident management system that’s designed to integrate seamlessly with your EHR to accomplish these tasks and more. Not only should it easily fit with your EHR, but it should be designed especially for your unique needs. It should be built around the concerns and focus areas that apply to skilled nursing and assisted living providers.
The right senior living software will make your life easier — not more complicated. Staff will be able to quickly and securely upload images or documents and record details about incidents, which will effortlessly merge all incident data into a clear, concise QA dashboard that shows you what you need to know.
Your EHR data is sitting there, not meeting its full potential. Make the best of your EHR data by integrating a comprehensive incident management system that will use what you already have to your advantage. This not only improves survey results and quality scores, but ensures the safety and well-being of your residents. And it attracts more people to your community.
Discover how this is possible with the advanced and specialized capability of QA Reader. Download the QA Reader Comparison Guide for EHR Users, and find out why QA Reader is a game-changer for your quality assurance and risk management efforts.
Next Steps
- Download the QA Reader Comparison Guide for EHR Users
- Request a customized demo of QA Reader
