For instance, at Family Care of Concord, the traditional paper chart has been eliminated, resulting in a large savings plus benefits to the patient. Prescriptions now take less than three minutes to complete in contrast to the former time of 15 minutes, partly because no charts need to be retrieved. In other areas, the electronic medical record also saves time and money. By using the new system, Family Care of Concord has reduced time spent coding, plus it allows the practice to track and report pertinent information to insurance companies, thus helping Family Care of Concord to accurately meet Medicare's coding compliance regulations. Similarly, using electronic medical records saves time in filing lab test results, plus the system generates letters notifying patients of their results in a quicker turnaround time.
Patients now get the results in one week versus two or three.
Turnaround time for referrals also has been reduced from one day to within one hour. In the near future, Capital Region Health Care Information Technology Services plans to implement the electronic medical record in all of the affiliated physician practices to realize the same cost savings and increased patient satisfaction.