How to Automate Healthcare Documentation with IDP

Healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals have long struggled to ensure proper documentation is recorded for patient records. From medical history forms to treatment plans, there are many documents that are used to ensure proper patient care. Document automation for healthcare is an important step to overcome this challenge. 

What is healthcare automation and how is it possible to help create a smoother documentation process? It all starts with understanding healthcare document processing and what healthcare automation solutions are best. You can then make an informed decision about what is best for your specific needs. 

Why is documentation important in healthcare?

Documentation is critical for patients to receive the best care and know that their bills are accurate. It describes the what, why, where, when and how care was given to patients. 

There are many examples of patients discovering they’ve been overcharged for procedures and it usually takes a long time to correct. For healthcare facilities, errors can be extremely costly. If the right codes are not used or are missing, millions of dollars could be (and currently are) lost to manual errors. 

Good documentation is important to protect your patients, improve quality of care, and promote good reviews of your facility and doctors. Documentation doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming if you have the right solution. 

EHR or IDP

Electronic Health Records (EHR) were established to organize a patient’s medical records including their history, diagnoses, treatment plans, test results, etc. EHR is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. Digital versions allow for patients to access their information online as well as receive faster care for future visits. 

But EHR systems are notorious for causing “extended work hours, time constraints, clerical workload, and disruptions to the patient-provider encounter, [leading] to a rise in discontent with existing documentation methods in EHR systems.” PubMed Central

EHRs are also prone to inaccurate data. For example, doctors dissatisfied with the long time it takes to upload documentation may not use the system properly. As a result, patient data could be incorrect or incomplete leading to errors in diagnosis or treatment plans. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), up to 50% of all medical documentation mistakes result from administrative errors, such as:

• Patient record errors
• Prescription errors 
• Patient identification errors.

Documentation errors can be a serious problem for healthcare facilities as it can result in patients being misdiagnosed, leading to severe harm or even death. 

EHR-related clinician burnout is another serious concern as increased demands for data entry into the EHR system cause job dissatisfaction. “This documentation burden has been linked to increases in medical errors, threats to patient safety, inferior documentation quality, job attrition, and, ultimately, burnout among nurses and physicians.” PubMed Central

A solution to the EHR problem is through Intelligent Document Processing (IDP). IDP captures, categorizes, extracts, and classifies data from documents, enabling healthcare automation to be powered by artificial intelligence (AI). 

Seamless connections between IDP and EHR systems ensure access to relevant information is always readily available. IDP handles data capture, information extraction, and classifies the information to send to the EHR system which organizes the data into an accessible format.

Healthcare Document Management Software

Another way to automate healthcare solutions is through healthcare document management software (DMS) systems. Different from IDP, it is a way that can help healthcare become much more efficient. DMS handles document storage, naming conventions, and more and works well in conjunction with IDP solutions like Rossum.

All IDP providers are not the same, however, and must be thoroughly researched to find the best fit for your facility. Data extraction in healthcare settings must be completed accurately and securely. Find an IDP provider that is at least SOC 2 Type II compliant so you can be sure to remain HIPAA compliant. 

IDP solutions such as Rossum allow healthcare providers to automate healthcare documentation that meets all these requirements. There are many reasons to use Rossum’s modern cloud native document processing solution, such as: 

• Accurate data capture
• Fast processing speed
• Reduced errors
• Streamlined data validation 
• Minimal manual work.

Benefits of IDP for Healthcare Document Automation

Healthcare data capture is best completed using an IDP solution. Reduced operational costs, improved workflows and security, increased revenue, and many more benefits await you. Healthcare document management is streamlined and made more efficient, making it easier for patient records to be kept up-to-date. 

IDP helps to reduce operational costs such as labor, paper storage, and administrative error costs. Reducing the need for manual labor costs keeps headcount to only essential workers. Storing documents on the cloud means HIPAA-compliant storage for paperwork is not needed as IDP helps with digitization and getting rid of old paperwork. And reducing administrative errors means time is spent trying to fix those errors. 

Administrative burdens on healthcare professionals takes time away from patient care. Doctors and nurses can be more attentive to treating patients if they can worry less about the mountains of paperwork that await them for each patient. Improving workflows with IDP for healthcare documentation enables a more streamlined process. 

Increasing revenue is a huge benefit for using IDP in healthcare settings. Missing and inaccurate codes mean that not enough payment is received from insurance for patient treatments. An efficient solution for healthcare documentation can go a long way to improving healthcare facility revenue.

The Rossum Difference

Rossum is a modern cloud native document processing solution designed to help busy professionals automate document workflows. When layout changes break existing systems, or you’re dealing with slow and clunky interfaces, Rossum has you covered. 

Rossum improves efficiency, increases revenue, and mitigates risk with an end-to-end IDP platform for automation across the document processing lifecycle. This includes pre-processing tasks like sorting and classification, data capture, validation, post-processing, and finally seamless integration with your existing system. 

Our deep learning engine reads documents much like a human and is more resilient to layout changes. Our modern, ergonomic validation interface streamlines human efforts when needed to validate results. An extensible automation platform eliminates work on common pre-and post-processing tasks. Finally, a turnkey, cloud native solution reduces maintenance and IT effort without templates or IT involvement. 

On average, Rossum reduces time spent on manual document processing by over 70% across our customer base. Would you like to learn how you can use that time saved to spend more time on patient care? We would love to chat with you to determine if Rossum is the right fit for your specific needs. Contact us today.