If you have been running a long established busy practice, you’re sure to have mountains of paper work: paper patient files, paper consultation notes, paper appointments diaries! And I’m sure by now, you’re running out of space to store it all!
Rather than running out to buy yet another filing cabinet, perhaps it’s time to think about taking that cash and investing in an electronic practice management system. Bringing your practice into the digital age not only reduces your carbon footprint but can also significantly reduce your admin time for all practice staff, including your practitioners!
Paper has worked for you so far, so why change now?
5 reasons to go electronic
1. Security
The number one priority in any business is of course protecting your patient data. With electronic records you reduce the potential of data loss; with the ability to create back-up files you will never find yourself in a quandary should your hardware fail or if an incident occurs which damages your paper copies.
There’s an added benefit for those of you wishing to have an online based electronic practice management system such as PPS Hosted; all of your backups are completed automatically, stored in a secure data centre and managed by experts giving you protection and piece of mind including protection against data hacks and viruses.
2. Store Historic Data
The last thing you want to do is increase your work load by keeping your patient files in two different locations. With PPS you can upload your existing paper records to your electronic database, not only does this make things easier with all data kept in the same place, but it also reduces the risk of losing information allowing you to safely dispose of those paper copies whilst still conforming to keep your records for a minimum of 7 years.
Also ultimately creating more office space when you get rid of those retro filing cabinets!
3. Automate Communication Methods
Consider the amount of time that is currently spent manually processing emails, typing up letters and calling your clients to remind them of their appointments. Now imagine how that time could be better spent…
With PPS you can take all of the effort out of these time consuming tasks by automating your processes. Send out automatic booking confirmations and appointment reminders via email or text, generate automatic referral letters by storing your standard templates and send out newsletters or marketing material to your whole client database with just a few clicks of a button!
4. Regulated Data Capture
With an electronic database you have the ability to programme the software to capture data that you wish to record, in the exact way that you wish to record it.
From client registration forms to consultations notes- remove the potential for error by making certain data fields mandatory, ensuring your receptionists are not forgetting to ask for vital patient information such as email addresses or medical history details and make illegible practitioner handwriting a thing of the past with typed up notes and custom forms.
5. Reports/KPI’s
With paper records, extracting information regarding treatment progress or key performance indicators for your practice has probably been a laborious process which no doubt involves manually updating an excel spreadsheet!
With PPS there is a detailed reporting module built into to your database that allows you to extract any information that you are inputting. With an existing range of built in reports such as payments and diary statistics, you no longer need to spend hours to get the results you are looking for, you can even save a list of ‘favourite reports’ to run on a regular basis.
PPS gives you the tools and information you need to ensure peak practice performance!
Still not convinced? Give us a call, we’d be more than happy to talk through any concerns or reservations you might have when considering making the move to becoming a paperless practice with PPS.
Call our sales department on 0845 0680 777, email us on sales@rushcliff.com or dive straight into a free 30 day trial by signing up via our websitewww.rushcliff.com
