Fixing Healthcare Order Management Workflows With NextGen EHR

Not that most healthcare practices lack orders. On a typical day, practices receive lab orders, radiology orders, referrals, and procedures that come in nonstop. The problem is that while generating these orders isn’t hard, managing them in an efficient way is. Many healthcare organizations lack adequate mechanisms for tracking orders, following up on those orders, and making sure nothing falls through the cracks. NextGen order management is more than just a convenience; for healthcare practices, it is crucial for operational efficiency and financial success.

Why EHR Order Workflows Break in Most Organizations

The default EHR order workflow requires going into patient charts, one at a time, identifying orders, and then handling those orders. This model works well when there are few orders to handle; it is highly inefficient when orders start piling up.

To compensate for this inefficiency, healthcare practices try different ways to handle orders that don’t involve NextGen: spreadsheets, verbal communication, etc.

While these methods might seem effective at first glance, the reality is that they are all highly unreliable, since they depend on the individual rather than a process. Without a reliable healthcare order tracking system, errors are bound to occur sooner or later.

And, when they do occur, they will cause the following issues:

• Lack of a standardized process across providers or departments for tracking open orders

• Uncertainty about which orders are open, pending, or completed

• Excessive administrative burden from having to track down every order status

• Unclear responsibility for the orders that are missed or delayed

This is what happens at organizations that haven’t created a proper process of NextGen order management.

The Consequences of Inefficient Order Management Processes

An inefficient healthcare EHR order workflow causes problems to pile up quickly.

Patients wait. Their orders aren’t followed up on due to a lack of visibility. Calls about results being delayed are made repeatedly. Referrals aren’t finalized in time. Necessary screenings are overlooked entirely.

The practice’s staff ends up doing extra work. Instead of handling other tasks, employees spend hours navigating through individual charts, responding to patient questions about order status, and checking which orders have been completed.

The practice itself isn’t spared. It runs the risk of compliance violations. Incomplete orders can negatively affect practices’ participation in quality programs, such as MIPS and HEDIS. Unclosed and unbilled orders represent outright losses in revenue. When critical follow-ups are not done due to poor order management, liability claims become inevitable.

All of these problems stem from one and the same cause - a lack of proper NextGen workflow optimization. The orders get placed, but no systematic process of healthcare order tracking exists.

What Good Order Management Looks Like With NextGen

Effective NextGen order management does not imply creating more workarounds and more hoops for team members to jump through. Rather, a good process streamlines and minimizes friction wherever possible. The staff should not be expected to do their job based on memory, sticky notes, and chart reviews – they need open items to be visible and manageable.

A well-designed workflow allows users to:

• Complete/manage orders without going to the charts

• Filter and group orders by types, such as labs, radiology, referral, diagnostic, and procedure orders

• Remove orders that have been completed, canceled, declined, and deleted automatically to avoid distractions

• Make any changes and perform actions right from this page without jumping around

• Understand who is responsible for each step and what the status of an order is

This is exactly how NextGen workflow optimization looks when done right. It goes beyond adding more steps to making the right steps visible and manageable, and closes the order loop.

TempDev's Order Management Template

TempDev's Order Management Template was created specifically to address the challenges practices encounter daily while working with order tracking in healthcare. Instead of going back and forth between patient charts, the staff has one central view listing all open orders across the practice.

Unlike the default NextGen EHR functionality, this solution takes into account actual team processes and needs rather than its restrictions. Every extra click, page, and workaround takes away valuable time from everyone's schedule.

The main features of this template include:

• A practice-wide list of open orders with filters by order type

• Updating statuses, assigning actions, and sending orders to billing right from this page

• Ability to use NextGen Document Management (ICS) for attaching faxed images to orders

• Filters removing all completed or closed orders automatically from the list

The end result is a much more structured order management experience, with less time wasted on navigation and chart checks.

The workflow template used in this solution is customizable, as no two practices operate exactly the same way. TempDev always sets up everything to match your organization's processes.

Real-World Example: Before and After

Before: fragmented and reactive

One multi-provider practice has to keep track of referrals, lab orders, and radiology orders for dozens of patients every day. To check the status, the staff has to go to the patient charts individually. Completed orders are kept track of in Excel spreadsheets while other actions are communicated via email and verbal reminders.

With time, errors start creeping in: missed results, incomplete screening reports – you name it. Despite being quite busy all day long, the staff ends up feeling frustrated from the lack of a structured NextGen order management.

After: Structured and trackable 

Once the TempDev Order Management template is set up, the process becomes much smoother. At the start of each day, the staff has one view listing all open orders across the whole practice. Orders could be grouped and filtered according to order type and completed from one page.

Since the completed orders disappear from the list automatically, the staff has nothing left to do except complete the rest. Incoming results could be added directly to orders, while tasks and reminders could be assigned immediately.

The whole workflow becomes more focused on closing open items and reducing turnaround time. Reporting and compliance have greatly improved thanks to NextGen workflow optimization.

Conclusion: Order Management Is a Workflow Problem

Practices struggling with order management usually have a process problem rather than a tool problem. In most cases, the workflow itself was not adjusted to support higher-order volumes and ensure efficient performance.

Luckily, NextGen EHR has everything needed to implement robust order management processes. All that's left to do is to create a workflow giving teams visibility into open orders, owners, and follow-up actions required.

More alerts and spreadsheets will add another level of complexity to the process. An efficient workflow with centralized healthcare order tracking and a clear EHR order workflowworks better here in terms of simplifying the procedure.

TempDev’s Order Management Template allows teams to create the necessary structure and automate the entire order process directly inside NextGen EHR. No more manual tracking through charts or spreadsheets is needed.

If your order management process still depends on spreadsheets, chart-by-chart reviews, or memory, it may be time to rethink your NextGen workflow optimization.

Learn more about TempDev’s Order Management Template or reach out to discuss how it fits your workflow.