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eClinicalWorks

Score9.8 out of 10

52 Reviews and Ratings

What is eClinicalWorks?

eClinicalWorks headquartered in Westborough offers their EHR / EMR solution, which can be upgraded to a full practice management solution at higher pricing tiers.

Top Performing Features

  • HIPAA compliance

    The software helps providers comply with the privacy standards established by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

    Category average: 8.6

  • Mobile/tablet support

    The software is accessible via mobile or tablet devices.

    Category average: 6.9

  • Coding

    The software helps users find the correct codes – whether ICD-9 or ICD-10 – for claims.

    Category average: 7

Areas for Improvement

  • Integration with other EMR and PM systems

    The software can integrate with EMR and PM software to allow practitioners to coordinate care with other providers such as hospitals or specialists.

    Category average: 6.7

  • Workflow automation

    The software allows practitioners to take action directly from a patient’s chart, such as prescribing a medication, ordering a lab test, or requesting a follow-up appointment.

    Category average: 5.2

  • Local mode / networking failsafe

    The software provides a way to ensure that network or connectivity issues are not a work-stopping event.

    Category average: 6.6

An EMR solution that no longer delivers on its promises, and has extremely sub-par support

Pros

  • Stores patient medical records
  • Works on multiple types of devices (PC, iPad, mobile device)
  • Allows for use via a web interface with controls on IP addresses for access

Cons

  • [In my experience] the support is atrocious.
  • Policy changes by their upper management are applied and enforced on the end user with no warning or input
  • [In my opinion] most updates focus on more manual labor, rather than automation of processes
  • [In my opinion] integration with other systems is non-existent or clunky.
  • [In my experience] resolution to problems typically takes a significant amount of time, usually in a later upgrade, which itself provides more problems.

Most Important Features

  • Meet compliance requirements (Meaningful Use, MIPS/MACRA)
  • Store patient information in a meaningful way and provide access to it at all times
  • Integrate with other systems to provide the maximum amount of patient information available.
  • Be user friendly and automate manual processes

Return on Investment

  • Been able to meet requirements for MACRA/MIPS and Meaningful Use
  • System Availability and speed has not been great, which as caused loss of revenue
  • There are a lot of manual processes we've been forced to do which increase staffing and thus cost

Alternatives Considered

NexGen, Aprima and Allscripts Professional EHR

Other Software Used

CGM LABDAQ, PDQ Deploy, Auvik, Lansweeper

Usability

eClinicalWorks

Pros

  • The note layout is efficient and easy to read.
  • The software is pretty. It has a lot of nice colors that are pleasing to the eye.
  • We like the sticky notes on top of the chart where we can input individualized information about each patient.

Cons

  • [In my experience] customer service is non-existant. You ask for simple things and their answer is always, "it cannot be done". Meanwhile, your medical assistant figures out how to do it while you were on the phone with the tech.
  • There are a lot of features, bells, and whistles, many that I'm sure would be useful. Unfortunately, nobody in eClinicalWorks knows how to use them, so these features are unusable.
  • [In my experience] this is an IT's heaven and a physician's nightmare. It can take 11 clicks just to refill a patient's medication.
  • There will be unexpected updates to the program and every time that happens something that was functioning before will no longer function anymore. Then you and your staff will spend endless hours on the phone trying to get someone to fix it.
  • [I believe] they don't care about their customers. Your complaints about how much time your staff is spending trying to get support will fall upon deaf ears.
  • [In my experience] things will suddenly malfunction and you will have no idea until you get an angry call from a pharmacy or another office saying your faxes have not come through for weeks.
  • With every update, they add more clicks. For example, when you are refilling medications there is no easy way to see the latest labs. That takes 4 extra clicks. Furthermore, if you review the labs and need to send a copy to the primary care physician you must exit the screen, find out who the primary care physician is, come back to the lab screen, make a few extra clicks to manually select the primary care physician, then hit send. Their default to forward the labs somewhere is back to the lab, which may make sense to IT, but not to most healthcare workers.

Most Important Features

  • The note is pretty
  • There are sticky notes

Return on Investment

  • Over the years it has slowed me down enough to see 2 fewer patients per day. That is a loss of revenue.

Other Software Used

Epic, CureMD, NextGen Healthcare Clinical Care Solutions (including MediTouch)

eClinicalWorks

Pros

  • They do have good software.
  • Providers like the ease of use.
  • The documentation can be adapted to the practice.

Cons

  • Customer service is not good.
  • The product is expensive.
  • Telemedicine software needs improvement.

Return on Investment

  • I think it has had positive impact as far as capturing procedures and visits.
  • I do not think it is value based.
  • I think the costs are excessive.

Usability

Other Software Used

FortiClient, FortiMail, Fortinet FortiGate

Beware of eClinicalWorks

Pros

  • Notes look professional - medical history and medicines are listed to the side, instead of pages and pages of typed words.
  • Can easily transfer photos in the office to the medical record.

Cons

  • I just tried to dictate a single simple paragraph, and "the request is timed out"; not the first time this has occurred. Ultimately, I end up hand typing the entire note.
  • Often, when selecting a diagnosis, it is not possible to correctly create that in the Assessments; a prosthetic knee infection option is not there, but a prosthetic hip infection might be.

Return on Investment

  • Our billing office had to wait over a month to get trained. We eventually received the patient's payments.

Other Software Used

Cerner CareTracker, Epic

eClinicalWorks (ECW) is a terrible product

Pros

  • The demographic area has a screen to the side which includes race, ethnicity, and language which is easy to access without additional clicks of the mouse.
  • It has multiple ways to access various screens in the program

Cons

  • Have to switch between too many screens to chart lab results, and print requisitions and the system is slow, locks up with almost every patient. Half the time, it doesn't save the lab results and locks up.
  • The medication interaction pop-up screen is irritating, you have to use a drop-down box to acknowledge interactions that are time-consuming, and the system is very slow.
  • The most important downfall of this system, ECW 11- web-based, is when it comes to continuing meds or prescribing new meds. Way too many screens you have to click back and forth between. Not a good continuous flow. The screens lag about 8-12 seconds between each med and matching dx.
  • ECW has had multiple issues for the last 7 years I have used the system. Only has gotten worse with time.
  • Education notes for patients are terrible.

Most Important Features

  • All of it.