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If you’re in the medical field, you most likely have some awareness of electronic health records (EHR) software. You may even be using one right now.
In 2020, the spectrum of EHRs has never been broader. What was revolutionary software in decades past is now standard tech in our industry.
However, the quality and degree of functionality can vary greatly from software to software.
As a result, we’ve decided to outline the characteristics of the most modern, advanced type of EHR – the enterprise EHR.
Put simply, enterprise EHR software describes a dynamic and comprehensive software solution powered by a holistic approach to software design.
Of course, there is much more to this story. In this blog post, we explore the breadth of functionality and dynamic capability that a true enterprise EHR exhibits.
Read on so you know how to identify the most powerful behavioral health software available to you.
Enterprise Software: The End-to-End Solution
An enterprise EHR is a software solution that encompasses and accommodates a provider’s entire operation.
That means supporting the full continuum of care all in one system. An enterprise EHR houses an organization’s clinical, medical, operational, financial, and engagement software in a single platform. That’s an end-to-end solution.
In your experiences with EHRs, have you ever used a platform that empowered an organization to handle pre-admission, admission, treatment, bill pay, discharge, and alumni engagement without any external integrations?
If so, chances are you’ve enjoyed enterprise functionality.
In this way, an enterprise EHR contains all the solutions and workflows necessary to deliver excellent treatment and achieve operational success.
One of the most important elements of any enterprise design is dynamic workflows and intelligent automation.
Behavioral health software does not qualify as “enterprise tech” just because it contains all the necessary tools. That’s only half the battle.
All those tools and solutions must interact and work together seamlessly so that a provider can leverage a smooth flow of operations that build on each other.
For example, the admissions tasks trigger the treatment process, then treatment progress kicks off billing processes. An enterprise EHR combines each separate function in a way that facilitates a provider’s unique system.
Enterprise Behavioral Health Software
Behavioral health treatment is varied and highly specialized. One organization may require a very different software solution than another in the same space.
What sets the best enterprise EHRs apart from the rest is how flexible they are. The measure of these platforms is not just the breadth of their functionality. It’s also critical that the software can work for the provider. How much can the provider make the platform their own?
The key here is consolidation.
At Sigmund, we’ve built an enterprise EHR specifically designed for behavioral health treatment. Our software was created to serve mental health treatment providers, addiction treatment providers, and all the varieties and complexities that fall under those two overarching fields.
Our mission as software developers is to refine each software solution so that organizations can harness every bit of the enterprise software they need while eliminating any unnecessary tools.
The very fact that our software contains such a diverse spectrum of tools and solutions means that we have to protect our users from being overwhelmed or distracted by any nonessential functionality.
From our experience, you can only strategically pare down a platform to suit a provider’s precise needs once you’ve achieved that all-in-one solution.
Enterprise EHRs and the Future of Behavioral Health Software
Thus far, we’ve covered the two main aspects of an enterprise EHR – comprehensive software solutions and flexible design.
As you know, we have a soft spot for behavioral health organizations. We wanted to point out a couple more EHR elements that are relevant to these communities.
For one, enterprise behavioral health software should provide users with administrator controls. This may seem like a minor feature in the grand scheme of things, but it can help keep an organization’s workflows efficient.
As a result, providers can manage their operation without relying on the vendor for oversight privileges. User admin controls are a critical element in managing workflows, staff, and documentation across the operation.
If a provider has to go through the EHR vendor to perform supervisory tasks in the system, that detracts from the user’s autonomy across the system, which in turn detracts from overall system efficiency.
We mentioned that there’s a fairly wide spectrum of enterprise EHR tech. If we take a step back, it’s taken about a decade for enterprise behavioral health software to become the standard in our industry.
Let’s look at a rough timeline of that enterprise progression so far:
- First, we built dynamic software solutions that connected the different legs of an operation in one system
- Then, we expanded functionality so that users could harness and engage with all the data in their end-to-end landscape
- After that, we developed dynamic reporting tools that organized and visualized data in a digestible, real-time manner
Now, EHR vendors are tasked with enhancing how the system can leverage and interact with that dynamic information for the user.
For example, developers in our space are exploring EHR features that automatically review data. In other words, EHR vendors are now dipping their toes into artificial intelligence solutions.
In an effort to further reduce staff labor and enrich decision support features, we expect to see enterprise tech that intelligently interacts with an organization’s data in the not so distant future.
The clinical environment can be very hectic. The goal for the past ten years was for enterprise EHRs to assume as much of the computing burden as possible.
Now, as we begin another decade, the goal is for enterprise tech to assume and automate a degree of the user’s thought process.
Behavioral Health Software: Further Education
At Sigmund, we strive to consistently improve the ways our enterprise tech can work for our clients.
We’re committed to merging enterprise-level functionality with agile and malleable software design.
Behavioral health providers deserve an EHR vendor that works to identify and isolate their perfect software solution.
In this way, the best EHR experience combines advanced software and excellent software service. The EHR vendor is often just as important to a successful EHR environment as their software is.
Behavioral health providers are tasked with evaluating EHR software and EHR vendors when choosing the right software solution for their operation.
In case you’re not an expert on EHR vendor best practices, we wrote a blog post that specifically outlines how to find the best EHR vendor for your organization.
Buying an EHR is a huge decision. Before making it, you need to know what to look for, and which red flags to look out for, in a market crowded with many different EHR vendors.
