Bradley Partner Amy Leopard Quoted in SelectHub on EMR Software Trends to Look for in 2019

Bradley attorney Amy Leopard was quoted in SelectHub on the future of electronic medical records (EMR) for 2019. Leopard shared her thoughts on some of the challenges facing EMR:

The main thing holding practices back from adopting EMR has to do with accessibility, since EMRs are incredibly expensive. While hospitals and large multi-facility networks are given government incentives to implement EMRs, the same is not true of smaller practices. According to Leopard, “Post-acute and home healthcare providers have not had the same financial incentives that hospitals and physicians enjoyed, so their take up rates have been lower.”

Despite how advanced general technology has become, EMR seems to be lagging behind in user-friendliness and ease of use. Leopard thinks “the biggest challenge at the moment is to address the physician workflow and usability pain points. There is a vast recognition that physicians are overburdened with the documentation requirements. EHR and healthcare technology generally need to be better optimized so they can avoid routine clerical functions and interact with patients more fully.”

Also, as AI and virtual assistants such as Alexa and Siri become more accessible and more powerful, they will begin to appear in the health IT fields. Leopard thinks this will happen soon and in a big way.

“Virtual assistants are also coming online to help with those physician burdens, in particular the aspects of the physician workflow issues that computers can streamline. For patients, the big development is expanding online or smartphone access to your health information and the ability to combine information from different providers and update it automatically,” she added.

 The complete article, “Future of Electronic Medical Records: Experts Predict EMR Trends in 2019,” appeared in SelectHub on November 15, 2018.