What benefits does Aquifer.EMR offer over paper charts?

  • Aquifer.EMR will save money.
    • Transcription costs. A physician seeing 30 patients per day is probably paying $20,000-30,000 per year for transcription services. By typing notes directly into Aquifer.EMR, this expense is gone.
    • Reduced office staff. Without charts to shelve or pull, there is no need for file clerks. Aquifer.EMR has built in support for coding which can obviate the need for coding clerks. Aquifer.EMR has patient-accessible appointment scheduling, allowing savings on office staff previously required to handle appointment requests by telephone.
    • Reduced office space requirements. Patient charts typically take up 200 sq. feet of space per physician.
  • Aquifer.EMR will augment revenue.
    • Aquifer.EMR strongly supports CMS documentation standards, thus minimizing denials due to non-standard record keeping.
    • Aquifer.EMR automatically recommends visit coding levels, minimizing denials and liabilities due to over-coding, and lost revenue due to under-coding.
    • Aquifer.EMR can automatically 'explode' charges, so that charges that are concomitant will always be billed.
  • Aquifer.EMR will improve the quality of care
    • It’s true that a physician can do a perfectly good job without an EMR. But Aquifer.EMR makes it much easier by providing information at the physician’s fingertips. EMR systems can be especially good at uncovering trends, since longitudinal information can be reported on in a single page or a graph, whereas in a paper chart individual data points are scattered about in a disjointed fashion. Aquifer.EMR can check for drug and allergy interactions. Completely legible prescriptions can be printed/faxed, or prescriptions can be transmitted electronically (where available), avoiding interpretation problems at the pharmacy. Professional monographs for drugs can be accessed with a single click, as well as patient information monographs.
  • An EMR keeps records secure and confidential, and makes HIPAA compliance easier
    • Paper charts sometimes develop little feet and walk away (actually, they're misplaced or mistakenly discarded, but this is the explanation people prefer). Theft and loss due to fire or natural disaster are also possibilities. People look at charts containing sensitive information when they aren’t supposed to. Using Aquifer.EMR, a chart can’t be deleted even by mistake. Backups are made daily (or more often) and stored offsite. And proper logins are required to see patient information, and only the information necessary to perform a given role is displayed. Aquifer.EMR has been designed to fully support HIPAA regulations.
  • Aquifer.EMR makes it easier to find information on a particular subset of patients
    • With paper charts, if a doctor wanted to see the records of all patients taking a medication (for example, if an FDA advisory came out on that medication), a lengthy and cumbersome search through all available charts would ensue. Aquifer.EMR allows searching for patients by clinical criteria such as whether they are taking a medication.
  • Aquifer.EMR makes the practice of medicine more enjoyable by removing drudgery.
    • Manually searching through charts, finding drug monographs in thick tomes, and waiting for charts to be pulled are a thing of the past.
  • Aquifer.EMR improves patient satisfaction
    • Aquifer.EMR allows the easy printing of patient information sheets, so the patient leaves the office with detailed information they can review at home.
    • Aquifer.EMR includes a patient portal, allowing patients to schedule and review appointments, keep a journal, send and receive secure messages to and from their physician, and (optionally) see their lab and radiology results.