Healthcare providers typically have strenuous days where every second counts. Since implementing electronic health records, many physicians have seen an improvement in terms of conveniently pulling up a patient's medical history. Now, new research is suggesting that healthcare facilities that incorporate single-sign-on (SSO) could help save even more time for clinicians as try to gain access to electronic medical records.
According to Healthcare IT News, a new study from the Ponemon Institute found that the average healthcare professional spends an average of 122 hours a year attempting to gain access to electronic medical records due to having to insert passwords, log-in information and other access codes needed in order to pull up patient data.
The study's authors also found that implementing SSO technology could save healthcare providers more than $2 million each year on average.
"The results of this survey validate the significant need for SSO technology in the healthcare industry. In addition to necessary security gains, this technology is proven to generate very significant cost and time savings," Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, told the news provider. "Healthcare systems using this technology can benefit from productivity and cost gains that could help transform their organizations."
Other findings revealed that on average, clinicians would save approximately 9.51 minutes each day by having immediate access to electronic medical health records. As a result of this extra time, each clinician using the system would save $2,675 a year. The SSO technology could also prevent the average healthcare provider from having to use between 11 and 30 different sign-on applications, which can be time consuming.
It appears as though healthcare providers are catching onto the savings, as the survey found that 70 percent of respondents believed that SSO was an important tool in integrating electronic medical records into daily practice.
Time has proven to be of the essence in the healthcare industry, which is why government officials have been pushing for the adoption of electronic medical records in the first place, as they could help doctors optimize care quality by having immediate access to the patient's complete medical history.
While SSO technology may be a beneficial addition to electronic medical records, it does not underscore the benefits that the system has as a whole. The American Academy of Medical Administrators (AAMEDA) reports that healthcare facilities see a number of benefits to implementing electronic health records, as these tools can provide timely information.
"The greatest challenge in the new world of integrated healthcare delivery is to provide comprehensive, reliable, relevant, accessible, and timely patient information to each member of the healthcare team, whether in primary or secondary care and whether a doctor, nurse, allied health professional, or patient/consumer," the organization writes in a study.
The government appears to be backing up this initiative, as it has pledged to provide financial support to organizations implementing electronic medical records. According to Commercial Appeal, not only can these kinds of records save time for the physician but also for the patient, as the electronic database allows doctors to send prescriptions electronically, giving the drugstore enough time to fill the dosage before the patient arrives to pick it up.
With healthcare providers and their patients already seeing the benefits of electronic medical records, using other tools such as SSOs may only boost convenience even more, which may provide a greater push for more medical facilities to adopt the practice.