Why EMR connectivity is a must-have feature for today’s vision screening tools.
Vision problems can significantly impact a child’s development, learning, and overall quality of life. Many vision problems, such as nearsightedness (myopia), farsightedness (hyperopia), astigmatism, and strabismus (deviation of the eyes), may not be immediately obvious. There is also a gap in communication between patient and caretaker. Children, especially younger ones, may not be able to express or recognize that they are having difficulty seeing clearly.
When it comes to treating vision problems in children, early diagnosis is key. The Welch Allyn Spot Vision Screener enables fast and objective detection of six amblyopic risk factors (myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, anisometropia, strabismus and anisocoria) in children as young as six months old.
It also boosts the efficiency and patient safety efforts of a pediatric office’s workflow.
For today’s clinicians, the manual transfer of information from a diagnostic test or screening to a patient chart is not only cumbersome, but it also creates an unnecessary risk for the healthcare provider.
The antiquated process opens clinicians up to the potential for errors to occur. Typos, missed information, or incorrect entries, can alter patient records and affect subsequent treatment decisions.
Indeed, manually inputting data from vision screenings, rather than using an electronic medical record (EMR) system, has several added disadvantages:
1. Staff headaches: Entering data manually increases the administrative load for the healthcare team.
2. Inconsistent access: Manually entered data might not be immediately accessible to other healthcare providers, leading to delays in patient care or decision-making.
3. Lack of integration: Manually inputted data may not integrate smoothly with other systems, requiring additional steps to align information across different platforms and causing potential disruptions in the continuity of care.
4. Data retrieval challenges: Finding and retrieving specific data points in manual records can be slow and cumbersome, making it harder to track patient progress or generate reports for analysis.
5. Compliance and documentation Issues: EMR systems are designed to ensure compliance with healthcare regulations (e.g., HIPAA), while manually entered data may be more vulnerable to omissions or inaccuracies in required documentation.
Overall, manual entry requires more staff time and resources, which can increase operational costs, especially in high-volume practices. And with today’s technological advances, it’s an unnecessary burden for healthcare providers.
For example, Baxter’s Spot Vision Screener EMR application streamlines clinical workflows by allowing the EMR to directly communicate with the device to:
- Send orders
- Receive results
- Attach the report to the patient’s chart
When charting is complete, clinicians have the option to delete the information from the device. This feature protects patient data and saves time by eliminating the extra step of manually deleting results from the camera. Clinicians can manage a full day of patients by displaying orders and status, filtered by provider.