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If your organization currently relies on paper charting, you might be hesitant to switch to electronic records. If it’s not broken, why fix it, right? Although paper charting might get the job done, there are more efficient options out there. Additionally, if you’re concerned about transferring data and learning a complicated system, you shouldn’t let that hinder you from making the leap to electronic records.
Lightning Step Technologies offers an All-In-One system that incorporates CRM (Customer Relation Management), ERM (Electronic Medical Records), and RCM (Revenue Cycle Management) with a single login and a single price. We offer an alternative to paper charting that is easy to use, efficient, and secure. Our services are designed to take the paperwork out of the spotlight and return the focus to what truly matters: providing quality personalized care to your clients.
Keeping Private Information Private
Personal information is everywhere in the behavioral healthcare industry, and it needs to be protected. Clients deserve to have their sensitive information safeguarded, and there can be major repercussions if there were to be an issue. While locking away paper documents in a filing cabinet can provide some level of security, there are many risks as well. Human error is inevitable, and it is not wise to brush off the very real possibility of it occurring in your organization.
For example, a staff member could accidentally place one client’s documentation in another client’s folder. Not only would this make that information hard to find when it is needed later, but it could also increase the potential of personal health information being distributed to the wrong people. If someone were to scan or fax documents and accidentally leave the original paper in the machine and only take the copies, that would be another scenario where a simple mistake could expose clients to privacy invasion and your facility to liability.
Electronic Records Minimize Chances of Errors
Utilizing electronic records ensures that those simple yet disastrous slip-ups don’t happen. Lightning Step Technologies keeps your data all in one place and balances ease of use with effective security.
On the end user side, necessary information can be accessed with a single login, speeding up the acquisition of data, while on the other side, your data is securely encrypted. Furthermore, the risks that come with emailing sensitive information to other departments or making physical copies are mitigated by the ability of staff members from every department to access necessary information without going through unencrypted channels.
Essential personnel have easy and safe access to the information they need, with various access levels available depending on a staff member’s role. We have also ensured our software is compliant with both Joint Commission and CARF standards, meaning that we worry about keeping your facility’s documentation in compliance while your staff worries about providing superior client care.
The system is also designed with a built-in client and family portal, allowing certain information to be communicated automatically to approved users. Within this portal, users can access and complete self-assessments, surveys, and consent forms that can expedite and inform client treatment.
Everything in One Place
A significant amount of information is collected during the course of a client’s treatment. Various tests, labs, routine vitals, medication changes, assessments, and care plans need to be regularly updated and integrated into a client’s file. It doesn’t stop there. Information is also collected long before a client even begins treatment at your facility, such as referrals from other care providers, potential client inquiries, and insurance details. Billing is entirely another world with its own set of data.
Minimizing Data Entry Time and Errors
If you are currently paper charting, you are most likely constantly reentering the same pieces of information every step of the way, from pre-admissions to discharge. Not only is this tedious and time-consuming, but it also increases the risk of making mistakes or accidentally omitting crucial information. The simplest things, like an intake form with a four that looks like a seven in the phone number or a misspelled name, can create tremendous obstacles that are only exacerbated by repeated reentry.
Lightning Step knows how big of a headache this is, and we also know that your full-time job should be client care, not rewriting the same information until your eyes cross. That is why our system includes not only a robust and customizable EMR but a fully integrated CRM and RCM.
Autogenerated Information
When data is entered at any point in the system, it is autogenerated throughout the rest of the system, allowing a client’s full narrative to unfold from initial contact through admissions and treatment to discharge and beyond. Admissions personnel have instant access to the number of beds available to expedite admissions and the initiation of care, while billing staff can determine charges by accessing treatment attendance records.
Documentation is not anyone’s favorite job. In the behavioral healthcare industry, there are always more important things to worry about, and spending copious amounts of time entering and reentering data can distract from delivering the actual services those documents are about. At Lightning Step Technologies, we have firsthand experience in this industry and understand customer relations, treatment, and billing needs. We work closely with our customers to tune the system to their specifications and get it up and running with on-site training for administrators and other staff to ensure everyone is an effective user. If you have reservations about switching from paper charting to electronic records, we would love to work with you to see how Lightning Step’s All-In-One system can make that change easy and leave you wondering how you have gone this long without it. To learn more about our All-In-One system, schedule a demo today.
