Allscripts Software

PALOMAHOMEHEALTH · Jun 8, 2010

We tried allscripts and gave it up.

During the short time in which we have been using Allscripts and inputting our data into the system, it has become very apparent that it is not the right software for our company, and we have made a decision to stop using Allscripts. The following are some of the reasons that led to our decision.

1. Lack of a charting module for nurse aides. This means that our nurse aides will still be documenting on paper even after all the other employees have converted to computerized documentation. Nurse aide documentation is one of the biggest reasons for citations during surveys because of its nature and because it requires heavy oversight. It also tends to be a major portion of the paper bulk on patients' paper charts that need nurse aides due to the higher frequencies of nurse aide visits and the nature of their work. Maintaining that aspect of our charting on paper would have been meaningless at this point because it nullifies our main reasons for computerized documentation in the first place;

2. Limited access to the software due to license restrictions. This means that we have to get a laptop for every employee, and that every employee must be trained to use Allscripts. Each laptop is 1800 dollars and each license is 250 dollars. That means for each employee with a laptop, an expense of 2050 will be invested. We are a growing agency with a lot of part time employees; this strategy will not work, and is a poor use of resources, without counting the hours required to train each employee.

3. Long training hours means that we will spend a lot of time and money training new employees to use the software. This is a disadvantage because it will lead to mistakes during charting, because the software is complicated to use, and employee frustration leading to higher turnovers and more expenses in training new employees. This will impact our patients as we have to replace the nurses and therapists they have grown used to, and this will negatively impact our patient and employee satisfaction, which will impact our outcomes.

4. Complicated and disjointed billing procedures. The fact that we have to use outside billing software and outside billing company has exposed the limitations of Allscripts that we were unaware of, including the inability to have eligibility verification within the system. We wanted software that was all inclusive and that limited our use of paper documentation due to the limitations of paper. What we have found out is that with Allscripts we would have to be dealing with computerized charting and paper charting, and outsourcing our billing.