eClinicalWorks

After using the product for 10 years our practice had learned to master the inefficient workarounds to where they have become 2nd nature. Unfortunately, recent server stability issues forced us to look for a new solution. Our hosted platform was eventually upgraded/moved to a more stable server farm however it was too late and the process to replace the software had already began. We eventually migrated to a new solution.

Puntos a favor

The price? As far as bargain EHRs goes, this is probably front runner, but the industry is lacking in innovation and functionality and this product is no different. Where you save money up front you pay for it by having a lack of features and seemless easy to use workflows. We constantly had to create nonsensical workarounds to achieve an acceptable workflow that was less painful for the providers but made it 10 times more difficult for the staff.

Puntos en contra

As a provider, you grade how easy an EHR is to use based on the number of clicks. As an IT professional you are able to assess a software's efficiency based on numerous other metrics. As the later, I can say by far the worst aspect is the number of clicks. With no redeeming qualities to speak having to drill down 5 or 6 menus to get to a patient's documents or financials and then be forced to back all the way out before checking on a 2nd patient's info is maddening. User's are forced to keep 2 instances open so as to not be forced to close a patient's demos/chart if they have to take a call and open a new patient's chart. This of course is explicitly denounced by eCW as forbidden. We do it anyway ... it's the only way.

I've worked with a number of EHRs (NextGen, Practice Fusion, ARIA, Meditech, Athena) and this has overall been my favorite. Most often the complaint I heard from people was the inability to understand the support reps, but compared to other vendors, issues were resolved more quickly. A lot of the offerings are add-ons and do have a cost, but compared to other vendors, I found them significantly more reasonable and thought the product was a very good value. Overall, it worked well. We were cloud based and had very few issues with the hosting. I would definitely recommend.

Puntos a favor

Vendor is very progressive in developing new features. For example, we could pull data from home blood glucose meters or fit bits into patient visit notes if the patient linked an account through the portal. Tracking for CCM billing was easy and built into the system. Patient engagement features were great, such as automatically notifying patients that prescriptions were sent to the pharmacy, calling for appointment reminders from the schedule and updating responses directly to the appointment. If you need to notify the entire schedule of a provider absence, it's very easy to automatically send out notifications. Lots of technology options for collecting data including inexpensive check-in kiosks and apps for phones and tablets. Software can be an installed application or web based. The software is very flexible in most cases and there are numerous ways to get from/to anywhere in the system quickly. You can open multiple instances of your login to allow you to document in one chart while viewing something else. Integrated faxing made for one less thing to support/review.

Puntos en contra

Reporting on clinical data is not good at all. It's very difficult to search the database and get accurate results on labs/medical history/diagnoses/etc. We tried RCM services early in their existence and found them very unreliable but that was a number of years ago. Updating note sections during a visit could contain a slight delay when clicking between different sections of the note, but not terrible.

Not satisfied.

Puntos a favor

You have the ability to do most things you need for medical practices. You can schedule patients, upload documents, run reports, bill and make claims, submit claims electronically and through paper printing, fax, e-prescribe, make telephone encounters, keep user logs, etc. It is an overall all-comprehensive product.

Puntos en contra

There are so many glitches it is pretty ridiculous. We are always playing catch up to fix numerous things that goes down. There is never a 2 week period where everything is running smoothly.
The technical and customer support is also weak. They do a good job of getting back to you most of the times, but it takes them quite a bit of time to figure out what is wrong and fix it. Not only that, but communication is a bit tough as I believe most service technicians are located out of country and have heavy accents.
ECW also charges you for so many add-ons that it gets to get ridiculous. They push their products and interfaces so that you need to pay them more than the monthly base.
Also, ECW is starting to get out-dated and behind. When we first signed up with ECW about 14-15 years ago they were top of the line. But they have quickly fallen behind all the other electronic medical records systems that have started. It has been frustrating trying to keep up, especially because of all the new medical record regulations government has been pushing.
ECW is also not friendly with other databases. If you need to submit certain information and electronic secure messaging, you can only do so by forcing the other party to sign up for ECW's communication system which of course no one wants to do.
Also, if you try to switch out of ECW, all the data in ECW cannot be transferred easily. They purposely make it hard for you to switch out and hard for anyone to work on tech. I'd say skip.

We spent the time to document our processes and identify areas where we wanted change. When the business analyst came, we were able to concentrate on how we wanted the EMR to work. This is the difference in having someone install an EMR with the "usual" processes and making it work for you. They are very willing to work with you to make the product work for your needs, you just have to identify what you want. If they can't change something (we wanted a couple of languages added to the list in demographics and couldn't because they were not on a standard list) they can work with you to find a solution.

Puntos a favor

This is a very cost effective EMR for our small health department. We are able to customize progress notes to allow for fast and efficient documentation of immunizations. Messenger can be used to call and cancel patients if an emergency happens and we need to cancel patients. This can be done from the internet anywhere, which can be a big help not to have to go into the office during a severe weather event. We have had very responsive staff from eCW who helped us during customization and implementation. The chat feature on the support portal can give quick answers (except on Friday afternoon). The support techs have always been quick to get back to us. The eCW university that has videos to either train new staff or remind current staff of processes is very valuable. This saves trying to construct training materials on your own.

Puntos en contra

Data entry for historic immunization records is time consuming. I look forward to a time when we will have bi-directional data transmission with our state immunization database, which will eliminate the historical documentation. As others note, there can be difficulties with communication if a support person does not have English as their first language. It just takes slowing down and being patient.

It gets the job done for us and it probably just like most other EMRs they all have issues but at the end of the day they allow you to record your notes and bill the insurance.

Puntos a favor

ECW can get most of what you want done. I work mainly on the reporting side and staff support. The ability to pull reports is pretty good with their EBO system. We get almost everything we need reporting wise from that system whether it’s financial or encounter data. Their support is pretty responsive usually calling back the same day in most cases. Their billin service is pretty good and is very reasonable. Our company pays about 8% totally cost with ECW which is pretty much the industry standard.

Puntos en contra

There are sometimes a lot of clicks with ECW. Anytime you do an upgrade something is not going to work which is very frustrating. If you are a CPC practice you will be frustrated as their reporting dashboard took until the middle of 2018 to start working and then we upgraded and now we are waiting on a patch to get the dashboard back up. Don’t expect to speak to anyone that’s first language is English when you call support. We started with ECW in late 2015 and we had to setup everything from scratch which we thought was really strange as they have so many practices you would think there would already be templates for almost everything.