For any questions regarding how to leverage social media within your practice, feel free to contact us at 615-425-2719.
Forty-eight percent of surveyed health care providers say they are using some type of social media website for professional networking purposes, according to a survey by health care staffing and recruitment firm AMN Healthcare.
Of the surveyed health care providers, 41% said they are using Facebook, 29% said they are using YouTube, 23% said they are using LinkedIn, 11% said they are using Twitter and 3% said they are using Foursquare for professional networking purposes.
The report is based on a 2011 survey of 2,790 health care professionals, including registered nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians, pharmacists, dentists and allied health care workers.
Source: AMN Healthcare, “Use of Social Media and Mobile by Healthcare Professionals”
Need to have your medical charts scanned? Contact us at 615-425-2719 to learn how we can help!
With EMR implementations rolling out like hotcakes, there is a common question that is being asked by all Practice Managers… What to do with my paper charts? We all know they have to be put into the EMR system but what is the easiest and most cost-effective way. Scan in-house or outsource?
Scanning in-house is an overwhelming task for any practice to take on. While there are some that actually succeed, most do not due to the complexity of this process. There are a ton of aspects to consider when trying to tackle a project like this; do I have to hire additional help, what is the best process, what equipment is needed, etc. Practices usually find themselves spending twice as much money and time when trying to scan in-house.
Is there a better option? YES there is!
Outsourcing the project to an experienced document imaging service bureau means your job is completed efficiently and quickly. No addtional staff or equipment is needed and you, the practice manager, don’t have to add yet another item to your job description. You can focus on running the practice while your charts are converted faster and more cost effectively than if you kept the job in house.
Many practices have partnered with Pulse due to our experience and knowledge in this field. We convert paper charts to indexed images, named PDF files, or any other digital format needed for import into new or existing EMR or Practice Management Systems.
So commit to EMR and get your charts converted by the Pulse team so you can ensure your EMR rollout is successful!
For questions regarding this great solution, feel free to contact us at 615-425-2719.
Every patient has unique healthcare needs and availability. With the Genitech Connect, you can ensure that your patients keep the appointments they make, without spending valuable employee time making manual phone calls. The Genitech Connect is the ideal solution for high-speed, low-cost, mass delivery of health care appointment reminders and medical notifications that require little or no human assistance. Automating healthcare appointment reminders can reduce no-shows, minimize lost time and increase revenue!
Our proven system can simplify and improve communication between you and your patients. Using advanced technology, Genitech Connect can deliver customized voice messages to thousands of patients in minutes. With a cost-effective pricing structure, Genitech Connect enables you to manage appointment reminders seamlessly and affordably.
Benefits Include:
There is no hardware or software to purchase! With our superior customer service and competitive pricing, we are sure that our solution will be a huge asset to your practice!
For questions on how to take your practice online, feel free to contact us at 615-425-2719.
There are many reasons why physicians choose not to have a website or participate in social media. There also are many reasons why that decision could end up hurting their practices.
“If you don’t have a social media presence, or at least a deeply integrated digital presence, you’re missing a chance to humanize your organization,” said Howard Luks, MD, an orthopedic surgeon in Hawthorne, N.Y., who consults on digital media and medicine issues.
Humanizing your practice is not just about letting patients know who you are. It’s becoming more crucial in attracting new patients.
“It’s a very different business world now with the social Web,” said Lorrie Thomas, CEO of Web Marketing Therapy, a marketing agency and training company.
“We make our decisions based on Googling people and going to their websites.”
For example, the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported in its February 2011 Health Topics report that 44% of Internet users look for information about physicians and other health care professionals online. That number was even higher (51%) for Internet users between 34 and 45 years old.
Even if a practice doesn’t need to attract new patients, it’s important for it to control its Web presence, experts say.
“Ignoring the Web doesn’t mean it will go away,” Thomas said. In fact, just because you aren’t there personally doesn’t mean your name and information aren’t out there, she added.
If a doctor still decides it’s too time consuming, expensive or troublesome to get online, there are things they must know before determining it’s the best approach, consultants said.
1. You will not stand out to potential patients. Your name and contact information probably are listed in either a Yellow Pages-type website or the physician finder pages of insurer websites. But without a personal Web presence, a search for local doctors won’t put your name anywhere near the top of a Google search by a patient seeking a new physician. Even if your name does show up in a Google search, patients probably will pass right over it in favor of doctors who have websites, said Renee Quinn, a Washington-based social media educator and consultant.
2. Having no reputation can be as harmful as a bad reputation. Because medicine is very personal, people want to like a physician before they ever go to see him or her, Quinn said. If doctors don’t give potential patients a chance to learn about them, patients will choose someone else they will feel comfortable with.
3. You’re missing an opportunity to educate. Because of the frequency with which patients look online for health care information, Dr. Luks said, physicians who aren’t contributing to that content are missing a great opportunity.
“Digital media and social media enable us to teach anyone and everyone around the globe who wants to learn about their particular disease process,” he said. “And why should we only be able to share our knowledge and experience with people we interact with within the four walls of our practice?”
4. There’s no outlet for people to sing your praises. Quinn said having a place for feedback on a website makes people aware that the physician cares what their patients think. People are less likely to say negative things when they know the doctor they are complaining about will see it, she said. And the people who want to say negative things anyway? They will say those things regardless of whether you are online. But not being online prevents physicians from seeing and responding to those complaints and concerns.
5. You’re not in control of your own brand. When physicians don’t create the content people see about them online, they are leaving the job up to others — patient review sites and hospital and health plan physician finder sites. Thomas said physicians run the risk of someone else setting up a page for their business on location and review sites like Google Places and Yelp. She said search engines could pull information from other sources and create business profiles based on what they find. “It’s to a physician’s advantage to take the reins and claim these listings,” she said.
6. You’re missing an opportunity to improve office efficiency. If patients visit Dr. Luks’ website before a first-time visit, they usually have taken advantage of the online forms he provides. They also know what to expect, because he has videos on his site with information about him, his practice and common medical issues. It all leads to more efficient visits and time well-spent in the exam room.
“Online access does not just provide an information source, said Jason Hwang, MD, an internist and executive director of health care at Innosight Institute, a San Francisco-based research organization focusing on education and health care. “It’s patients taking action.”
He studied the impact of an online scheduling system that was put into place by HealthPartners, a nonprofit health care organization in Minnesota. He found that wait times for an appointment were reduced from 17.8 days to 4.2 days, with many patients able to get same-day appointments.
7. You might lose out on recommendations. When patients have a good experience, Dr. Luks said, they are more likely to recommend you to friends and acquaintances through social media. But if they can’t find you online, they probably won’t make the recommendation.
“Personally, I feel to ignore the intersection between health care and social media is to potentially ignore our own relevance as a health care practitioner during the next, I’ll say, decade,” he said.
Dr. Luks said 15% of his patients came to him because they found him online. “To not have a digital presence is simply unacceptable, and you are losing business because of it, period,” he said.
Source: AMA
Are NO-SHOWS killing your bottom line? If so, contact us at 615-425-2719 to learn how our automated appointment reminder solution can help reduce your no-shows!
Every patient has unique healthcare needs and availability. With the Genitech Connect, you can ensure that your patients keep the appointments they make, without spending valuable employee time making manual phone calls. The Genitech Connect is the ideal solution for high-speed, low-cost, mass delivery of health care appointment reminders and medical notifications that require little or no human assistance. Automating healthcare appointment reminders can reduce no-shows, minimize lost time and increase revenue!
Our proven system can simplify and improve communication between you and your patients. Using advanced technology, Genitech Connect can deliver customized voice messages to thousands of patients in minutes. With a cost-effective pricing structure, Genitech Connect enables you to manage appointment reminders seamlessly and affordably.
Benefits Include:
There is no hardware or software to purchase! With our superior customer service and competitive pricing, we are sure that our solution will be a huge asset to your practice!
Looking to have your medical records scanned? If so, contact us at 615-425-2719 for more information!
Scanning your medical records is imperative! With profit margins continuing to get smaller in medical practices it’s important to increase efficiency in all areas. Streamlined management of medical records and the process of digitizing them is one key component of creating a leaner, more cost effective practice.
The time lost spent going from one location to another trying to find a particular page in a patient’s chart is something that many office managers and doctors forget to think about. Time is such a precious resource for medical doctors and their practices! There is only so much time in a day and so many patients that can be seen by one doctor. Eliminating the physical aspect of searching for files by scanning your medical records is one key to improving the efficiency of your practice.
Pulse Practice Solutions provides patient chart conversion services for Healthcare organizations that have or are planning to implement EMR solutions. We convert paper charts to indexed images, named PDF files, or any other digital format needed for import into new or existing EMR or Practice Management systems.
If you are looking to reduce costs, streamline processes and improve productivity, the time is now to take your practice electronic!
For any questions regarding how to improve your network infrastructure, don’t hesitate to contact us at 615-425-2719.
Looking at EMR or ready to implement an EMR… either way, you spent months on research, demos, site visits, etc. All there is left to do is sign the contract and start the implementation process then you will be ready to see patients, right?
Not so fast! Many software vendors tend to gloss over the importance of the underlying infrastructure necessary to make EMR implementation successful. Usually, this is not intentional; very few software vendors have the necessary in-house talent to properly evaluate and recommend a solid information technology (IT) infrastructure that can reliably support a mission-critical application. Because of that, many EMR implementations fail miserably due to unacceptable performance and spotty uptime. Bloated project costs and a lack of confidence in the application and the EMR vendor frequently deliver the death blow to many expensive software initiatives, both inside and outside of healthcare. EMRs are difficult enough to implement in their own right; failure to address the foundation at the beginning will certainly compound that difficulty.
Below are items that also need to be addressed when moving forward with EMR;
Why make the HUGE investment in EMR but not build a solid infrastructure to ensure your EMR performs to it’s maximum potential? The less time you spend on fighting the infrastructure and EMR, the more time you can devote to patient care and realize the efficiencies an EMR can deliver!
For questions about how to eliminate your no-shows… give Pulse a call at 615-425-2719.
Every patient has unique healthcare needs and availability. With the Genitech Connect, you can ensure that your patients keep the appointments they make, without spending valuable employee time making manual phone calls. The Genitech Connect is the ideal solution for high-speed, low-cost,
mass delivery of health care appointment reminders and medical notifications that require little or no human assistance. Automating healthcare appointment reminders can reduce no-shows, minimize lost time and increase revenue!
Our proven system can simplify and improve communication between you and your patients. Using advanced technology, Genitech Connect can deliver customized voice messages to thousands of patients in minutes. With a cost-effective pricing structure, Genitech Connect enables you to manage appointment reminders seamlessly and affordably.
Benefits Include:
There is no hardware or software to purchase! With our superior customer service and competitive pricing, we are sure that our solution will be a huge asset to your practice!
Interested in technology for your practice? If so, give us a call at 65-425-2719. Pulse Practice Solutions is a Nashville company specializing in Document Management, Document Scanning, EMR, Marketing & Managed IT for Medical Practices. A valuable resource for medical practices – so contact us for a cost-free evaluation of how we can make your practice more efficient!
About 60% of physicians working in small- or medium-sized practices say that technology has made their work easier, according to a survey by Practice Fusion, a vendor of electronic health record systems, Healthcare IT News reports.
Practice Fusion conducted its second annual State of the Small Practice survey by distributing an online poll to 1,000 medical practices through the Practice Fusion platform.
The survey found that:
Source: iHealthBeat
Take the necessary precautions to ensure your data is secure and protected! If you have any questions or need assistance, contact us at 615-425-2719 and we will discuss how we can help!
Many small medical practices are more susceptible to health data breaches because they rely on out-of-date technology and overlook adequate data security protections, according to Kroll Fraud Solutions’ annual cybersecurity trends forecast, American Medical News reports.
According to Jason Straight — managing director of Kroll’s Cybersecurity and Information Assurance unit — many small practices do not have the technical expertise to adopt tools that help prevent breaches. Straight added that other practices have the tools but do not implement or monitor them appropriately. For example, some practices might install data encryption tools incorrectly.
In addition, Straight noted that some smaller practices might not perform routine maintenance of a system if they are planning to install a replacement or upgrade.
In comparison, large organizations often spend more money to protect their data, according to Beth Givens, founder and director of Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.
To avoid health data breaches, Straight recommends that small practices:
Source: iHealthBeat
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