So, your medical organization has decided to take the plunge and transition from an antiquated paper-based system to an electronic medical records software solution. The trouble is, you are low on time and want to make sure that you will only be looking at EMR software that has the most useful features. It can take some time to make sure you understand the ins and outs of EMR applications and what options you should expect to find when you implement this software in your office. To that end, here are five features that the best EMR software will have.

Not all medical practices will adopt emerging technology at the same rate. Some organizations have more resources and more forward-thinking people on their payroll, which means that they will use the latest software and technology solutions to make things easier on their staff and patients. Your behavioral/mental health practice may still rely on using an outdated, paper-based system to keep things running. However, this is an approach that you cannot expect to hang onto for very long, given the complexities of treatment protocols and the ever-increasing connected nature of healthcare providers.

One of the signs of people who are true professionals is that they are seldom satisfied with the state of their business or the development of their abilities, skills, and knowledge. While you strive to maintain a certain level of service and abilities for each staff member, you know that the medical field is constantly evolving. New techniques become available to help us diagnosis and treat patients as well as to measure how well a particular treatment protocol is working. This means that medical organizations are always in a state of development, with team members needing to stay current on discoveries in their field as well as what current industry best practices are in their niche.

As a medical professional, you know that your job will typically be easier when everyone in your practice is fully engaged with patients, people are caught up in their work duties, and they are healthy, enthusiastic, and filled with empathy for those they are taking care of. When times are difficult, however, the medical staff may need to take some time to remember the reasons why they selected this profession in the first place.

Like most medical professionals, you surely have chosen this field because of a sincere desire to help people with your special skills, knowledge, and abilities and not because you were interested in organizing records and examining data about patients. This is why it’s not so surprising that some medical organizations are stuck in the past, using antiquated paper-based systems instead of switching to a computerized process. They may be somewhat aware of the existence of software solutions but have decided that they can get by without it for now.

The familiar prescription pad that doctors would scrawl on in their oftentimes terrible handwriting is becoming more of a relic of the past, thanks to expanding use of e-prescriptions. Besides cutting down on wasted paper and saving trees, e-prescribing provides a number of benefits to patients, their families, the pharmacy, and of course the staff at a medical organization. Here are three things that you need to know about e-prescribing.

Like most managers and owners of successful medical practices, you probably have devoted much of your resources toward setting up a system that lets your employees work as efficiently as possible. The more time you can save on routine tasks and the more bottlenecks you can eliminate, the more patients your staff can see and treat. It would be a shame if you stopped improving efficiency at your practice at this point, when software solutions are available that can help your team put their time to better use. Indeed, many organizations are turning to practice management software to improve their operations and boost their bottom line.

The computers sitting on the desks at your medical practice can be considered among the most important links holding your business together. Generic business applications or one-size-fits-all medical programs will, by definition, be unsuitable for handling many of the regular events and tasks that your staff has to deal with each day. Medical practices have unique needs when it comes to computer applications. Finding the right software can mean the difference between just getting by or growing so successful that you have to hire more medical professionals to handle the increased work load.

In any organization, it’s not unusual for some, if not all of the members to be somewhat resistant to change. This is natural, since we spend a lot of time learning how to work with a particular system, and once employees have mastered a certain way of doing things, they would find it wasteful to have to learn something new. An example of this situation can be seen in some people’s resistance to learning about ICD codes, despite governmental action to prompt medical organizations to get ready as soon as possible.

Medical practice managers, owners, and the founding physicians take great pains to develop a working environment that helps them see more patients while maintaining tight control over your most vital resources, chiefly staff time and medical expertise. If you have been growing concerned that your medical practice is not doing its best possible work, you’ll want to sit down and consider what the problem might be. It’s useful to investigate what things you are doing right and what areas could stand to see some much-needed improvement. Here are three things holding your practice back from better patient care that you can start focusing more attention on.