The Use of Tablet Computers by Physicians for Data Entry into EHRs

There have been various conversations over the years about the use of tablet computers for data entry into EHRs by MDs (see, for example:Why Tablets Are The Future Of Electronic Medical Records;Tablet-Based Patient Registration Deployed at Longone Medical Center). This would seem to be a logical EHR capability given that one of the criticisms of these systems is that physicians spend too much time at the keyboard and not making eye-contact with patients (Doctors Need to Maintain Patient Eye Contact While Using EHRs). With a tablet, the physician can face the patient while entering data. The use of tablet data entry seems to be commonplace for some EHR vendors. For example, here is a list of physician functions that can be accomplished with a tablet using the cloud-basedPractice Fusion (see:Practice Fusion Blog):View your daily schedule and see every provider ’s schedule.Chart patient visits with touch-based templating, new vital sign options, and clinical decision support notifications in the new encounter.Access all your patients and add new patients.Manage your EHR users and connect with labs, imaging centers, and ePrescribing from your new EHR dashboard.Although some tablet computers have keyboards, or can be equipped with them, most are used with the touch screen for data entry. Here are some salient points for consideration about this topic:The use of EHR scribes who accompany physicians when a interacti...
Source: Lab Soft News - Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Information Technology Pathology Informatics Source Type: blogs