EMR gives physician a new lease on life

Overview

Dr. Sol Werb has been in family medicine practice for more than 30 years in the Greater Toronto Area. His three-doctor clinic serves more than 9,000 patients, with an average of 150 patient visits per day.

Challenges

Like most physicians, Dr. Werb entered the field of medicine with dreams of helping patients, saving lives and treating disease. However, as the years went on, he found he was not able to spend as much time with patients as he would have liked. Instead, his work days were consumed with too much administration and paper work. Dr. Werb had so much paperwork that his day at the office often didn’t end until the late evening. The workload was taking a considerable personal toll on him.

“Before I began to use Nightingale’s Electronic Medical Records (EMR), I wasn’t able to leave the office until about 10:00 p.m. I would be reviewing and entering information into patient charts,” Dr. Werb explains. “When I did leave, I’d usually have boxes of patients’ files in tow to complete at home. I wouldn’t be done working on all of those files until the early morning. I barely saw my family, and all I did was work. I was at the point where I was ready to leave medicine.”

Nightingale Solution

Nightingale On Demand Electronic Medical Records (EMR) offered Dr. Werb a fully integrated, simple to use system that automates daily tasks, streamlines workflows and creates a single, accessible source of patient data. As a Web-based service he can access it from any location.

“After three months of extensive research, I selected Nightingale’s Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system because it’s the only true web-based offering available on the market. The product’s features and cost were compelling, and it is the only offering that was customizable for my needs.”

Dr. Werb is now able to securely access records from a portable tablet PC, where he can also enter patient information directly into patient charts. All pertinent information is available within a few clicks. 

Results

Since implementing the Nightingale Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system, Dr. Werb has seen a substantial shift in how his time is spent. 

With dozens of predefined clinical templates available to him, he is able to update information while he is meeting with patients, saving valuable time in his practice. Tasks that used to take four minutes or more to write now take 30 seconds to add to the chart. Moreover, Dr. Werb was able to build customized templates ensuring a personalized workflow.

As an example of how much time he has been saving since he began using the system in his practice, he explains that he is now seeing significantly more patients than he was prior to using Nightingale. “By their nature, annual physicals take significantly more time,” Dr. Werb explains. “Having everything templated makes it a lot easier. Previously, the paperwork alone would take at least 20 minutes to complete. Now I’m done in a matter of minutes.” 

“I’m now able to leave the office to be home in time for dinner without taking any work home with me,” says Dr. Werb. “It truly feels like after 30 years, this product has given me my life back. This is a beautiful system.”

Quality patient care

So much less time with paper means getting to more patients sooner. This has lead to reduced wait times. Whereas regular appointments used to be booked a week in advance patients are now  often seen within a day or two.

Dr. Werb now feels more freedom to spend more time with individual patients. Now he can visually demonstrate changes in a patient's condition using the visual aids. “Graphics in Nightingale On Demand definitely help to illustrate issues and have an impact on patient understanding,” he says.

Complete and compliant patient records

In addition to time savings, Nightingale On Demand Electronic Medical Records (EMR) also helps ensure accuracy, legibility and security of notes. This is vital to a physician's job. In the province of Ontario the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) has stringent record-keeping requirements and routinely audits physicians for accurate notes and records. Template fields in Nightingale On Demand match the CPSO’s requirements so each record is complete and compliant and never misfiled or lost.

“A physician could be a great doctor, but if no one can read his handwriting that wouldn’t matter. Doctors need the tools to make them accountable, but the tools must help us do our jobs,” Dr. Werb explains. Insurance reports and letters to lawyers are other items that have become easier for Dr. Werb to deal with, as each is automated within the system.

“The Nightingale EMR solution is worth every cent,” says Dr. Werb.

Looking Ahead

Printers have been installed in the office so handwritten prescriptions are a thing of the past. In the future, Dr. Werb anticipates continuing to improve patient care using the system, by using it for things such as creating documentation for patient education, as well as to manage and track missed appointments.

Finally, Nightingale’s patient management system, Patient Access, is something Dr. Werb is looking forward to implementing. This will allow his patients to book their own appointments online and to   electronically correspond with him and his office.

“Nightingale On Demand has changed the way I feel about practicing medicine,” Dr. Werb summarizes. “It allows me to see more patients, serve those patients more effectively, manage my practice more efficiently, and maintain my personal and family life. It sounds too good to be true, but for me it’s been a ‘miracle’.”

Source: http://www.nightingale.md/ca/customer-community/customer-successes-1/dr-sol-werb/