Myrtue Medical Center

Seven months after Myrtue Medical Center implemented an electronic medical record (EMR) system in February 2007, Dr. Don Klitgaard, one of the Center's family physicians, faced a critical situation. A patient who had diabetic ketoacidosis was rushed to the hospital. Klitgaard had seen the patient before, but had not treated her regularly. When the woman was brought into the emergency room, she couldn't communicate, nor was she accompanied by a family member who knew about her condition or what medications she was taking.

It was critical to identify the woman's previous course of treatment and any medications she was taking as quickly as possible. Using Practice Partners, the Center's EMR, the medical team was able to find the information they needed within a matter of minutes.

"We were able to pull up her electronic chart right there in the emergency room and see that she had been in the clinic and they'd made some adjustments in her insulin, and she'd been diagnosed with a urinary tract infection and started on an antibiotic that obviously wasn't covering her infection well," said Klitgaard.

According to Klitgaard, such rapid access to information is a key benefit of making the transition from a paper-based system to an EMR.

Another important benefit is having the tools to manage patients who have chronic disease more effectively. "The thing that's going to change care of patients most is [our ability to better] monitor and track chronic diseases," said Klitgaard. "The [EMR] should be an important tool for that. This is something that in a paper world would have been hard or impossible to do. We're heading down that road." For example, the practice is setting up office-visit templates to help the health care team to collect data that can be used to monitor the progress of patients who have chronic diseases.

For all of the benefits of the EMR, Janelle Nielson, Myrtue's Chief Clinical Officer, acknowledged that the system did require a lot of effort on the front-end and initially slowed things down in the office. "It took some getting used to," said Nielson. However, at this stage of the implementation process, Klitgaard said that the consensus in this rural practice is that switching to an EMR system is a positive change.

For practices considering an EMR system, Klitgaard recommended taking plenty of time to identify what features their office needs, what inefficiencies they're hoping to correct and how they'd like an EMR to accommodate their needs before deciding on a system. "It was surprising the amount of thought required in changing to an [EMR]," Klitgaard said. "The goal shouldn't be to just put your paper system on an electronic system." Although some EMR salespeople may take a one-size-fits-all approach or simply recommend popular features, Klitgaard said that it's important for a practice's EMR selection process to be as specific and individualized as possible.