Best practices for switching to cloud-based documentation

At MGMA’s Medical Practice Excellence Pathways Conference, Dr. Jeff Williams, assistant medical information officer at Hattiesburg Clinic and Constance Cain, clinical analyst at Hattiesburg Clinic, gave a presentation discussing why their practice transitioned to cloud-based and shared their outcomes and best practices.

Ultimately, they said that they chose to transition to a cloud-based documentation platform because a cloud-based solution doesn’t need a local profile, requires less maintenance without specifical local hardware, allows faster response times that are more accurate upon use, and switching to the new platform did not require individual computer volume/audio checks with initial log-ins.

Hattiesburg Clinic transitioned to a cloud-based speech recognition platform in 2017, the presenters said. They began with selected members to determine workflow and to identify nay bugs.

They said that previous “big bang roll-outs” with new software solutions found staff members too easily giving up shortly after launch. This time, they identified eight beta testers from the initial test group for the pilot program.

Overall, Williams and Cain said that the cloud-based platform improved physician experience, accelerated care coordination, reduced transcription costs by $1.5 million, shortened the billing cycle, and improved the patient experience. Ninety-eight percent of their total spoken documentation was created by the new solution, benefiting clinicians by having documentation available in real time, they said.

Here are the best practices and lessons learned that Williams and Cain shared in their presentation.