Work Scenario

As a psychiatrist, having access to client data, being able to easily keep up on notes, and
communicate with the patient and care team are critical to the functionality of the psychiatric
practice. With this goal in mind, I have been asked to design a system that will allow
psychiatrists and their teams to securely input and store notes and data pertinent to their patients,
as well as effectively deliver communication between the team, psychiatrist, and patient. For this
project, I will be utilizing patient scheduling software, automated patient administration systems,
and digital medical records.
The first of these technologies is to assist with patient scheduling. As in many medical
professions, psychiatrists have complex schedules and every individual patient has unique needs
of their own. Previous methods of scheduling would be to block out 30 minute to 60 minute time
blocks for each patient at least 2 weeks in advance, or longer if the staff is over booked. But with
the ability to easily pinpoint openings in the staffs schedule, a patient will be able to guarantee an
appointment within minutes over the phone. This also inherently reduces the down time a doctor
may have due to cancelations in their schedule, as canceled time blocks could easily be filled by
an incoming patient or one willing to take an earlier appointment. This software also has the
ability to send email, text, or automated calls to remind patients of their appointments.
Patient reminder systems get more robust than simply notifying an individual of their
time block.There are a number of applications that can follow up, collect payments easier,
maintain insurance records, or keep individual member data such as addresses, date of birth, next
of kin, and emergency contact information. These systems can reduce administration overhead
by quickly preforming tasks that once took several staff members to preform. There is no longer
a need of multiple people in the billing department making phone calls every month to collect
payments or personnel specialists to compile data in the event a patients family needs to be
notified of a tragedy.
The third technology I will be implementing will be digital medical records. It seems too
often that doctors are overwhelmed with the mountain of paperwork each patient brings. With a
digital system, however, it would be easier and more efficient to filter out the unnecessary
information in the paperwork and allow the staff to quickly assess the previous medical history
and make a pre-assessments on the case. There is only so much time each doctor gets with their
patients, so reducing the time it takes to get to know their history can increase the time a doctor
will have treating the patient’s condition. This can also allow for the reduction of confusion, as
hand written records are subject to wear and tear, and poor penmanship causes a loss of
information. A digital backup can easily be replicated across systems, or shared with other
members of the patient’s care team with the click of a button, rather than an hour of compiling or
faxing the data.
In summation, the three technologies I would implement to improve communications,
records keeping, and patient care are a scheduling software, an automated administration system,
and digital medical records. With these tools combined and communicating with one another, we
should be able to efficiently help as many people as possible by streamlining communication
amongst the team and allowing for easy access to scheduling and their records for the patient. I
believe that this is the best way, as a medical professional, that we can fulfill our obligation to do
no harm.