By Gary Salman
Carestream Dental U.S. Director, Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery
When I talk to doctors who are still using paper charts in their practices, they all have one thing in common: they resist electronic medical records (EMR) because they’re certain that the switch from paper will be painful. While the transition is not a walk in the park, the challenges that EMR addresses make it a worthwhile effort. Consider these points:
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How much time goes into case documentation (taking notes, annotating them and then inserting them into the chart)? For example, if you extract four wisdom teeth, how long does it take for you to capture every detail of that procedure? Remember: quality documentation reduces liability.
I can promise you that practices that have made the switch to EMR don’t pine for the days of paper charts. It’s definitely a transition worth making. The next question to then ponder is this: what makes one EMR system better than another? I’ll discuss that subject in a future post.