Bryce Turnbull, managing director at Cerner, offers nine things to know about EMRs for ASCs.
1. Different from EMRs in other venues. An EMR for an ASC has completely different functions than hospital inpatient EMRs or EMRs for physicians' offices, Mr. Turnbull says. Rather than focusing on the patient's chart, the ASC version follows each phase of care, from pre-surgery, to the operation, to post-op.
2. All kinds of ASCs install EMRs. Cerner's ASC clients range from stand-alone ASCs to management companies, Mr. Turnbull says. Since the price of the Cerner product is based on numbers of ORS, smaller ASCs pay less.
3. Still low penetration. Mr. Turnbull says 10 percent or less of ASCs have an EMR system, a much lower rate than for HOPDs. Most ASCs have automated scheduling systems but not automated preference cards, which are still processed by hand. "That is a very labor-intensive process," he says.
4. No federal funding for installation. While the federal government is offering generous healthcare IT funding for hospitals and physician practices that have installed EMR systems meeting federal specifications, there is no such funding for ASCs. But even without federal funding, "it pays to install an EMR," Mr. Turnbull says.
5. Opportunity for more efficiency. EMRs provide efficiencies such as eliminating the need to gather data for each patient and entering information such as each surgeon's preference card. "You'll never have to build a chart again," Mr. Turnbull says. And since supplies are tracked closely, inventory can often be reduced by 10 percent, he says.
6. ROI varies widely. While EMR systems provide a significant return on investment for ASCs, Mr. Turnbull declined to quote an ROI, saying the exact amount depends on many variables, including how efficient the surgery center was to start with.
7. Provides useful data. One big advantage of EMRs is their ability to generate data for cost reporting. "You can compare the costs of cases and the costs of different surgeons," Mr. Turnbull says.
8. May help gain access to ACOs. While his ASC customers don't seem concerned yet about joining accountable care organizations, Mr. Turnbull thinks gaining ACO membership will become a key incentive to install EMRs. ACOs require a great deal of data that could not be efficiently generated without an EMR, he says.
9. Interoperability still a problem. It is useful for the EMR to interface with the surgeon's office to have access to charts and billing information, but this requires installing an interface at an extra cost or buying the same brand of EMR as the office has, Mr. Turnbull says. Otherwise, the chart can be faxed over and scanned into the system as an image rather than as bits of data, but this means data then has to be typed into the ASC's EMR system.
Learn more about Cerner.