The deployment of the latest technologies in the healthcare industry allows medical providers to create many clinical tasks that were impossible before. For example, telemedicine or telehealth helps doctors virtually provide diagnosis, treatment, and even prescriptions. Moreover, remote healthcare technology enables specialists to receive and analyze medical records quickly and accurately.

Thanks to the latest technology and new medical software solutions, healthcare providers now have access to tools to provide improved patient care.

But clinics that ignore these innovations are less efficient and see fewer patients than their competitors.

To stay competitive, healthcare providers must implement telemedicine solutions in their medical practice.

When choosing a telemedicine solution, you must focus on one of the most crucial aspects — integration. A solution that doesn’t integrate with your electronic health record (EHR) system creates more problems than it solves.

EHR is a digital version of a patient’s medical record critical in every medical practice’s organizational efficiency.

Gone are the days when clinics are crammed with paper files forcing staff to wade through mountains of paperwork. Many medical practices, clinics, and healthcare institutions are transitioning from paper medical records to electronic to reduce manual documentation tasks and enhance work productivity.

EHRs include patient information and clinical data relevant to patient care. Best of all, it is available for the patient to view or can be quickly sent to other medical specialists when needed.  

The following are the main advantages of an EHR system:

• Securely store medical records and efficiently collect and analyze health data 
• Improve accuracy of documentation and provide easier access to data
• Reduce consumption of administrative resources such as paper forms, cabinets, printers, etc.
• Track and manage patient medication, resulting in improved health outcomes

EHR provides many valuable benefits, but your practice must implement and use it correctly for it to be an effective telemedicine tool.

However, not all telemedicine solutions available in the market offer EHR integration, so you must find the most suitable platform to maximize performance. 

Curogram is a telemedicine solution that can integrate with MD Systems & Solutions.

The MD Systems & Solutions, Inc. (MDSS) is a single-source solution vendor that provides Chronic Care Management (CCM), Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM), Annual Wellness Visits (AWV) to medical practices of all sizes.

Any patient data collected must be transcribed into the MD System manually, which takes time and resources. With a telemedicine solution, the process is automatic and doesn’t require input from staff.

That said, telemedicine integration can be challenging. Healthcare providers have to invest time and effort to integrate it. Depending on the software, you might need to hire an IT expert to handle the process.

Furthermore, you must negotiate with the telemedicine vendor and sign a contract before connecting the software to your EHR.

Curogram, one of the leading practice management and communications software, recognizes the obstacles of integrating a telemedicine solution. That is why our platform makes the process easy. Curogram integrates with hundreds of the most common EHRs used in United States clinics, including MDSS. 

The most critical factor when integrating a telemedicine solution is compatibility. If the telemedicine software can’t connect with your EHR, there’s no way to integrate.

Curogram integrates with the MD System’s Patient Database and Schedule of Record. Its platform allows your practice to streamline time-consuming clinical tasks, such as calling a patient to confirm their appointment or going through your file cabinet to look for a specific patient record.

Curogram uses the latest and most state-of-the-art integration technology to connect with any of the following types of EHRs:

• App-based 
• Cloud-based 
• Server-based
• Web-browser-based

With Curogram, you won’t have to wait longer to set up a virtual clinic and start accepting patients right away. After a complete integration with MDSS, Curogram enables your practice to create virtual appointments and other essential features for telemedicine services.

Why choosing Curogram is the best way to enable seamless telemedicine and two-way texting with MDSS.

Curogram offers healthcare providers a simple integration process. Here are the advantages of integrating Curogram over other telemedicine solutions:

1. Integrate Curogram With MD System in 48 Hours or Less

Most telemedicine solutions take months to integrate with an EHR or practice management system. According to a study by the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, the average length of the integration process is around six to eight months. 

With Curogram, the integration only takes 48 hours. You can have your virtual clinic up and running over a weekend without disrupting your workflow. 

2. Connect With Curogram on Your Own

Traditional telemedicine solutions are complex software that often requires IT assistance to integrate. A healthcare provider must invest thousands of dollars in hiring an expert to link the solution to their EHR. Furthermore, it can take weeks to complete the process, increasing costs. 

Curogram’s integration doesn’t require any IT assistance. Curogram’s platform is designed with healthcare providers in mind who use common technology for their day-to-day tasks. You’ll have your virtual clinic up and running over a single weekend, saving thousands of dollars in the process. 

3. Train Staff Within Minutes

Staff training is vital in every medical practice that uses telemedicine solutions. They have to know the ins and outs of the software before using it to collect data and communicate with patients. Many telemedicine solutions can take weeks or months before the staff becomes well acquainted with the features. 

Fortunately, Curogram’s user interface (UI) is user-friendly. You won’t need more than half an hour to teach your employees how to use the software. Curogram’s UI is easy and natural to use, avoids confusing the user, and does what the user needs. Your clinic can start setting up smart reminders and automating query answers within a day of Curogram’s integration.

4. Avoid Administrative Hurdles

Healthcare providers must go back and forth with telemedicine vendors to draw up a contract to satisfy both parties. The process drags on and delays the software integration significantly.

There are no additional negotiations when integrating Curogram. Once you connect MDSS with its software, you enter into a Business Associate Agreement by default. That means you won’t need extra paperwork to complete the process.

Once you’ve incorporated Curogram into your practice, our telemedicine software offers more than just EHR integration. It has the most-essential telemedicine features to improve workflow and create a more streamlined telemedicine experience! We will explore these features in the next section. 

Telemedicine features

While telemedicine is in high demand, most healthcare providers aren’t familiar with the essential features they need to make telemedicine a success. 

Many healthcare providers utilize digital solutions that offer nothing more than videoconferencing. Commercial messaging applications such as Zoom or Skype enable video appointments, but they are also notoriously difficult to manage. These apps, especially the free versions, don’t comply with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules and regulations, meaning you could end up paying hefty fines or even face criminal charges.

As its term suggests, telemedicine solutions address obstacles to implementing remote care delivery. It must possess essential features to streamline multiple aspects of your clinic. Curogram has all the necessary features as an integrated solution.

Curogram streamlines clinical tasks, such as admitting patients, collecting data, and sending them to virtual waiting rooms for onboarding.

Healthcare providers across the United States choose Curogram because it has multiple interconnected features to improve clinic workflow and create a more centralized telemedicine experience.

Curogram boasts the following features essential that complement one another, making your telemedicine practice easier to offer:

Simplified Scheduling System

Traditional scheduling can be confusing.  Both the patient and office need to find a date and time that works for both parties. And if a patient wants to reschedule, the medical office must check its schedule and match the patient to a new available time slot. 

Unfortunately, mix-ups are common, and medical practices might accidentally schedule two appointments simultaneously. But with Curogram’s integrated online scheduling system, patients don’t need to contact the office to set up an appointment. They can view the available time slots on Curogram’s scheduling platform and choose the one that meets their needs.

Rescheduling is just as easy. The patient just needs to cancel on the platform and choose another time, significantly reducing patient no-shows. More importantly, Curogram has automated appointment reminders sent to patients before their appointment.

Secure Texting

A telemedicine solution must have a HIPAA-compliant texting platform but only a few vendors offer it.

HIPAA regulations forbid healthcare providers from sending electronic protected health information (ePHI) via text. That makes sending patient data without violating these regulations challenging.

With Curogram’s full HIPAA-compliant texting feature, you can start texting patients immediately without worrying about HIPAA fines or criminal charges. The Curogram platform doesn’t send PHI via texts directly, but instead, it uses secure links in the messages. 

Using Curogram’s secure texting platform, your clinic staff can simplify these tasks:

• Onboarding patients
• Sending payment links
• Disclosing information about patient appointments
• Sending intake forms
• Giving information about prescriptions
• Sending details about lab orders

Virtual Clinics With Virtual Waiting Rooms

Medical practices using third-party apps, such as Zoom or Skype, require patients to download them to their computer or smartphone to attend a virtual consultation. Patients may find this troublesome, especially the older generation who aren’t familiar with mobile apps and the tech-savvy patients who expect convenience with telemedicine technology.

Using Curogram’s text messaging system, you send a secure link. All the patient has to do is click it to enter the virtual appointment. However, mix-ups may also happen in a virtual setting. A patient may receive an invite to a virtual meeting with the wrong physician by accident – Curogram prevents this from happening. Its platform offers a virtual waiting room that makes admitting patients easier by automatically routing them to the correct staff member. 

It’s also possible to modify the waiting room view so that specific staff members can only invite the scheduled patient if it’s their turn. That feature prevents mix-ups and allows staff, who are more familiar with in-person appointments, to adapt to the virtual environment. 

Customized Electronic Patient Forms

Traditionally, healthcare providers typically used paper intake forms to collect patient data. But this method produced several downsides, including:

• Patients must be present at the clinic to fill them out
• Crowds of patients form in waiting rooms
• Patient handwriting can be illegible
• Transcribing intake forms takes time

Curogram’s electronic patient intake form feature alleviates these issues and streamlines patient data collection in medical practices. When patients schedule a visit, Curogram sends them an electronic intake form automatically, which they can fill out on their phone or computer. Once patients submit their data, it’s uploaded to your EHR automatically.

Once you implement Curogram’s electronic intake forms, your clinic staff won’t have to transcribe patient data ever again. There’s no risk of error unless the patient makes a mistake while providing their information.

Although telemedicine and telehealth have been around for decades, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has propelled its rapid adoption. That ignites IT vendors to generate telemedicine software to cater to the increasing demand for remote care delivery. 

Telemedicine solution vendors are constantly improving their features to bring more convenience to patients and better efficiency to healthcare providers. Telemedicine will continue to evolve in the future. That is why it's crucial to implement telemedicine software like Curogram, which has already established solid features and tools to provide your practice with advantages when offering remote care services.