How Can Patient Intake Software Improve Patient Experience and Doctor Workflow?

For years, a critical step of the patient intake process has remained the same: After providing signatures to various documents and having their insurance validated, patients are asked to spend a few minutes answering questions about the reason for their visit and about their past medical history on a form using pen and paper. This step can provide pivotal context to a visit to a physician; for example, knowing of a prior history of certain problems or use of certain medications may markedly alter the approach to a certain complaint.

When this older process works, neither the patient nor medical staff has any issues. It often doesn't work, as evidenced by patients' anecdotes of being asked the same questions again by the physician. On a busy day, it can be difficult for medical staff to assimilate the information the patient provided, either on paper or face-to-face, because of time constraints imposed by running behind and by documentation requirements. By making the information-gathering process more effective and reducing the physician documentation burden, patient intake software such as ChartMedic can improve care while improving both clinician and patient satisfaction

What Is a Doctor's Workflow and a Patient's Experience?

When we refer to a clinician's workflow, we are talking about all of the tasks and processes that must be performed in order to deliver care to patients, including chart review, speaking with and examining the patient, formulating and discussing a plan of care, and documenting their findings and plan. A doctor's workflow varies from physician to physician, specialty to specialty, and office to office. In evaluating the patient experience, we consider all the interactions that a patient has during their office visit, including interactions with doctors, medical staff, and filling out paperwork.

Some factors that slow a doctor's workflow include:

• Needed information is hard to come by, for example, the patient cannot recall the name of a medication that influenced their symptoms, and the electronic medical record must be reviewed to help them recall it
• Too much information is provided; for example, the patient answers a simple question with a story (we all like to tell and hear stories)
• Physicians must find something in the medical record that would change their medical plan
• Patient is not ready to be seen (paperwork is not complete, vital signs not taken)

Factors that affect a patient's experience include:

• Answering questions twice (on paper, then again to the physician)
• Waiting on the doctor to find information in the medical record
• Wait times caused by previous appointment delays throughout the day
• Physician is rushed and doesn’t have time to answer a question about the diagnostic or treatment plan

All of the above factors lead to a worse experience for both patients and physicians. When this process goes slowly, the information-gathering process so crucial to formulating a plan of care leads to the clinician being late to the next patient's appointment, and the one following, and so on. When pressed for time, the clinician must choose between being late for the next patient and failing to fully understand the situation the patient in front of them is in. It's no surprise that inadequate FaceTime is a common complaint among physicians and patients alike.

In the context of documenting in the chart, asking patients to fill out questionnaires using the old-fashioned method of paper and pen prior to the appointment takes much longer than a digital questionnaire, for which the documentation is automatically prepared and presented to the physician for review and can be rapidly incorporated into the clinical record rather than laboriously and incompletely transcribed later. Patient intake software can help make this process go much smoother.

What Is Patient Intake Software?

Patient intake software allows patients to enter all of their information digitally before their appointment, so it's immediately available for review by the physician and easily recorded into the patient's chart. This allows physicians to review patient information seamlessly before interacting with the patient. Patient intake software allows doctors to spend more time with each patient because they have the pertinent information at hand and have to worry less about documenting it in the patient’s chart.

How ChartMedic Simplifies the Patient Intake Process

Our belief at ChartMedic is that medicine is about patients, not paperwork. We trust that simplifying the practice of medicine and the intake process can lead to healthier and more satisfied patients. Collecting patient data using ChartMedic frees up four to six minutes of interaction time during each appointment. This allows for a better patient experience and doctor workflow. Below is how the ChartMedic system makes the medical process better for all parties involved.

Gather patient information

During the check-in process, medical staff selects questionnaires according to the reason(s) for the patient’s visit in the ChartMedic app, which then asks the patient all the routine questions needed to be answered for evaluating the problem during the appointment. The questions patients answer before their appointment on the ChartMedic app were designed by experienced medical professionals to extract all the key details needed to support accurate diagnoses. There is no writing or typing required on the part of the patient to answer them. After the patient has answered a series of questions, they can relax while their entries are automatically transferred to the cloud for processing during the appointment.

Charting is generated in the cloud and presented in our web app

The medical provider then reviews the chart documentation derived from the answers and can import that documentation into the electronic medical record without having to review a paper questionnaire and without transcribing the details that need recording into the chart. This information is then presented in the usual ways it’s documented in a chart, with as symptoms with characteristics, pertinent past medical history, and other contextual information.

Chart notes are generated and transferred into Epic

After review is complete, the medical provider can transfer all of the patient information to central hospital systems using only a few keystrokes. All of this information is centralized in Epic, where it can be edited as needed, and whereso medical providers can have easy, ongoing access to patient medical information. Epic’s electronic medical record software is used by over 250 healthcare organizations nationwide to send and store electronic medical records.

Benefits of the ChartMedic Intake System for Patients and Doctors

The benefits speak for themself: the patient gets more of what they want, and the clinician gets what he or she needs to provide quality care more rapidly. ChartMedic also fosters accurate and complete chart documentation where it matters.

Learn More About Patient Intake Software From ChartMedic

Provide great medical care in less time and with less typing by using ChartMedic. For more information on how ChartMedic's high-value, flexible plans can take some of the frustration out of the intake process for both doctors and patients, contact us or fill out our form today.