How to Reduce Medical Errors with EMR Software
Medical errors hinder patient outcomes, so every healthcare clinic strives to reduce or eliminate them. Embracing technology can help, as electronic medical records (EMR) make patient data more accessible while leveraging automation to reduce transcription and data entry errors. The best EMR software also flags potential allergies and adverse drug reactions and provides clinical decision support (CDS) to help clinicians avoid errors at the point of care.
Unfortunately, misuse of EMR may cause medical errors by propagating inaccurate or outdated information. If a clinician blindly trusts a platform’s AI recommendations, they could prescribe the wrong medication or approach therapy sessions incorrectly. Additionally, some EMR systems aren’t equipped for the unique challenges of behavioral health practices. Clunky interfaces can distract or confuse providers, making it easier for errors to occur.
Benji, a Hansei company, was built to streamline behavioral health workflows while mitigating costly errors. Here’s how to reduce EMR errors using our all-in-one software platform for mental health professionals.
What Is an EMR and Why Does It Matter to Patient Safety?
EMR is simply an electronic version of the paper charts used in clinical settings. Electronic medical records contain important information, including:
- Patient demographic data (name, address, DOB)
- Facility information (name, address, tax ID)
- Medication and treatment history (prescriptions, diagnoses, treatment plans)
- Allergy and medication lists
- Insurance details (plan name, policy number)
With EMR, providers can access all of a patient’s information in one place, ensuring they have the complete picture when ordering tests or meds. Software also promotes safety over paper charts, as potential drug/allergic reactions can be flagged, and results are sent directly to the EMR to reduce patient mismatches. Clinicians can also compare health data over time to spot trends that may not be apparent on paper charts.
Essentially, EMR solutions are more powerful paper charts. They:
- Address common safety risks
- Reduce medical errors
- Provide safeguards specific to behavioral health
- Support standardization
- Enable interoperability
- Measure key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Offer robust security features
- Foster patient engagement
Common Safety Risks in Outpatient and Behavioral Health
High-risk error types include medication errors, missed results, patient-matching issues, and documentation gaps. Behavioral health clinics also face specialty-specific challenges, such as accurately transcribing group notes and protecting sensitive substance use disorder (SUD) treatment data.
How EMRs Reduce Medical Errors
EMR software addresses medical errors in several ways, including:
CPOE and eRX
Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) and e-prescribing (eRX) allow clinicians to order everything from a patient’s chart, eliminating the possibility of patient mismatches. Lab results are sent directly to the EMR for review, and labs and pharmacies never need to clarify handwritten orders.
Allergy and Interaction Checks
EMR software automatically checks new orders against a patient’s established allergies and medication lists, flagging potentially harmful interactions that clinicians may miss. This feature is not a substitute for due diligence but an extra line of defense against adverse reactions.
CDS
Clinical decision support provides clinicians with timely information and recommendations at the point of care to improve patient safety, diagnoses, and medication management. Common tools include alerts, reminders, and clinical guidelines.
Results Tracking
Test results don’t mean anything if nobody looks at them. EMR software alerts clinicians to new results so they can provide prompt interpretation to the patient. EMR systems also track patient data over time, providing an accurate history of information such as relapses and treatment plans.
Tasking/Inbox Workflows
EMR tasking defines which clinicians are responsible for each aspect of patient care, centralizing action items. Most EMR systems include inboxes that notify clinicians when something needs to be done, at which point they can either accept the task or delegate it to someone else.
Duplicate-Chart Prevention
EMR software leverages personal identifiers and biometrics to ensure each patient has only one chart on the platform, eliminating data silos and enabling clinicians to access each patient’s complete medical history.
Behavioral-Health-Specific Safeguards
If you’re wondering how EMRs can reduce medical errors unique to behavioral health providers, here you go:
Native Standardized Screening Support
EMRs can administer standardized screening tests such as the Personal Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), the Columbia Protocol (C-SSRS), and the General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) as part of the patient intake process. This ensures clinicians understand where patients are from their first meeting.
Treatment Plan Versioning
Mental healthcare is often ongoing, not segmented into independent encounters. Treatment plan versioning allows providers to review how a patient’s treatment plan has evolved, in order to inform future decisions.
Group Note Workflows
Group therapy is often among the most important behavioral health services, but transcribing discussions for future reference can be a nightmare. Behavioral-health-ready EMR software provides flexible templates to capture that information and add it to each patient’s chart.
Telehealth Documentation
EMR software automatically documents all of the data required for compliance, including the date of service, location of patient and provider, telehealth modality used, informed consent, total time spent, and the reason for the visit. This eliminates documentation gaps and streamlines billing and reimbursement.
Segmented Access to SUD Treatment Details
EMR software automatically separates sensitive SUD treatment information from generic health records, facilitating compliance with regulations such as 42 CFR Part 2. Role-based access controls limit unauthorized access while ensuring information remains accessible to clinicians who need it.
Configure Your EMR for Safety
There are multiple ways to set up your EMR to promote patient safety. Standardized templates and required fields prevent documentation gaps by reminding providers to include necessary information. Template governance enables clinicians to tune how many alerts they receive to avoid fatigue while remaining responsive. You can also establish order sets for high-risk services to avoid misuse.
Copying and pasting is convenient, but it can also spread inaccurate or outdated information. Standardize copy-forward rules across your organization to prevent potential errors while still enjoying the convenience of copying and pasting.
SAFER Guides: A Checklist Approach
The Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience (SAFER) Guides help healthcare organizations conduct proactive self-assessments to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of their EHR implementations. It can be broken into a five-point action plan, each represented by a letter in SAFER:
- Stop
- Assess
- Formulate
- Execute
- Review
Performing a self-assessment is as simple as scoring your organization’s performance on a scale from 0 (not implemented) to 5 (fully implemented). The checklist below is an example designed specifically for behavioral health settings:
SAFER Self-Assessment Checklist (Behavioral Health)
- Accurate patient matching
- Complete documentation
- Strong access controls
- Optimized clinical alerts
- Clear downtime plan
- Reliable interfaces (labs, eRX, HIE/FHIR)
- Template governance
- Accurate audit trails
Downtime Readiness and Recovery
Healthcare providers rely heavily on their EMR software, so any downtime will be alarming and could cause medical errors. The best way to prevent downtime-related errors is to have a clear plan. Read-only access controls and downloadable paper kits ensure patient information remains accessible during outages. Likewise, clear communication trees should be established to ensure everyone remains up-to-date on the situation. Documentation procedures during downtime should be standardized throughout the clinic, with clear reconciliation steps to follow when the system is restored.
Training, Roles, and Governance
EMR software is designed to reduce human error, but human error in operating the system can still result in costly medical errors. Proper training dramatically reduces the risk of operational errors, but some EMR vendors don’t offer enough support, or charge a premium for it.
Fortunately, Benji customers benefit from Hansei’s white-glove customer service. Sandbox training allows clinicians, front desk personnel, and other stakeholders to practice without risking sensitive patient information. Benji also supports a super-user model where team members who demonstrate outstanding knowledge become qualified to help their peers. Competency checks and periodic documentation audits keep everyone on target, and non-punitive incident reporting allows mistakes to be corrected without turning into a blame game. You can even establish organization-wide policies for templates and secure messaging.
Interoperability that Prevents Errors
EMR software reduces patient mismatch errors by interoperating with third parties, which means you need seamless interoperability to protect your clinic. Here are some examples worth considering:
- Lab interfaces
- eRX interfaces
- Health Information Exchanges (HIEs)
- Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)
- Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture (C-CDA) sharing
Our pre-go-live interface testing checklist will help your practice avoid result and medication mismatches.
Measure What Matters
Benji EMR software allows stakeholders to track the most important safety KPIs in one place. These include:
- Abnormal result follow-up times
- Chart closure times
- Medication reconciliation completions
- Duplicate-chart rates
- Near-miss reporting
Security and Privacy for Safety
Compliance with regulations like HIPAA and 42 CFR Part 2 is important, in part because they are designed to support patient safety. HIPAA requires providers to implement multiple safeguards to protect patient data, including end-to-end encryption, role-based access controls, and regular audits. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) also helps prevent unauthorized access.
42 CFR Part 2 establishes strict guidelines for SUD treatment details. Generally, clinicians need a patient’s written consent to share information with other clinicians, even those at the same care site. EMR software offers consent management tools and secure cloud infrastructure to help ensure compliance. All clinicians should also practice good device hygiene practices.
Patient Engagement to Reduce Errors
Patients play a pivotal role in protecting their information, and EMR software can help them. Patient portals, open notes, and reminders help patients verify medical and demographic details, flag inaccuracies, and adhere to advice and follow-ups. The result is not only increased patient safety but better health outcomes.
Schedule a Demo with Benji
EMR solutions dramatically improve patient safety, and you should choose the best if you’re wondering how to reduce EMR errors. Experts with over 20 years of experience created Benji to streamline behavioral health workflows, so we understand your mental health clinic’s unique challenges and how to address them. Contact us to learn more about what makes Benji such a trailblazing tool for behavioral health professionals.How to Reduce EMR Errors: FAQs
Both EMRs and EHRs reduce administrative errors compared to paper records. EMRs are generally used at a single care site and often lack interoperability with other providers. EHRs provide a more comprehensive health record designed to be shared between providers, delivering a significant safety advantage.
Notably, Benji is an EMR with an EHR’s interoperability features, so our platform doesn’t compromise on patient safety.
Alert fatigue causes burnout, slowing clinician response times and leaving some messages ignored. Benji allows clinicians to control which alerts they receive, reducing burnout and the increased risk of medical errors it can cause.
Structured templates prevent documentation gaps by reminding clinicians to fill in required information, but may prove too restrictive to accurately describe what happened during a session. Clinicians need templates and freeform narratives to optimize patient safety, and Benji delivers with customizable templates and robust progress note capabilities.
CPOE digitizes physician orders, reducing the risk of patient mismatches and erroneous treatments by ensuring standardization. CDS provides healthcare professionals with timely patient chart information at the point of care, streamlining diagnoses while preventing adverse reactions.
Data export should be handled through secure systems such as the CDC Secure Data Network (SDN) or through secure file transfer methods such as secure cloud storage or HIPAA-compliant data encryption. You should also manage data carefully during and after the transfer to prevent data breaches and unauthorized use.