Eliminating Manual Test Entry

Blog  |  25 October 2022

Written by: John Lauraitis

Every year, billions of point-of-care test results (urinalyses, blood tests, etc.) are manually abstracted from paper printouts or screens into EHRs. This time-consuming process presents risk for human error, incomplete or incorrect result data and potentially negatively affecting patient care.

When technology can help streamline so many tasks, why continue to enter these results manually when solutions are available to automate the process? That’s why we chose Relaymed as our October App of the Month. This solution seamlessly connects point of care testing devices to Veradigm® EHR (formerly Professional EHR) to automatically match results to orders.

Counting up the wasted time

In a busy physician practice, time is the most precious resource. Manually entering a lab result into the EHR is a time-intensive process. Sandra Tomlinson, Head of Healthcare IT at Prairie Pediatrics, estimated each manually entered test took an average of 3-5 minutes, adding up to around 3 hours of wasted staff time each week.

When speaking with Relaymed she stated “Once we calculated the cost of staff doing all this work manually, in terms of hours and dollars, switching to an automated solution just made financial sense.”

The EHR should be the data hub and single source of truth for providers as they enter the exam room to meet with a patient. Relaymed streamlines workflows that can slow practices down. This means clinicians have more face time with patients, which improves their experience.

Improving quality of care

Patients do not want to wait for lab test results or delayed patient appointments. They are behaving as consumers who choose their healthcare. Timely, accurate lab results are an important part of the patient experience, especially if they can be delivered electronically.

Opening the ecosystem

Just as Veradigm Connect, formerly the Allscripts Developer Program, offers first class open APIs, so does Relaymed, which has some of the leading medical device vendors on its lab interface platform. These interconnecting ecosystems are where the power of open, quality and value all converge.

Please join Relaymed on a webinar October 27th at 1 p.m. ET to learn how our partner has helped organizations harness the power of connectivity with Relaymed and Veradigm.