patient engagement, pediatric ehr

How an EHR Can Help Pediatricians Manage COVID-19

Vaccinations are arguably the most important form of care that pediatricians provide to children. But with dozens of steps in the vaccination workflow, keeping patients up-to-date is no small task.

While the COVID-19 vaccine might be a new offering for pediatric offices, PCC has been tracking childhood immunizations since the 1980s. As a result, we have the technological infrastructure already in place to streamline vaccine delivery. 

Read on to see how PCC benefits providers as they work to vaccinate their patients and manage COVID-19 challenges.

Coordinate Patient Communications 

Vaccinations, especially in the middle of a pandemic, have raised a lot of concerns among parents. As a result, it’s important to connect parents with factual information so that they can make the informed decision to vaccinate their child.

PCC’s EHR helps coordinate communications for pediatricians, including automated texts, emails, and phone calls that can be used to remind patients about upcoming vaccination appointments and communicate office announcements. Whether your practice prefers to make phone calls or send texts, PCC helps streamline communications and tracks your activity so that you can send the right message to the right patients.

Our patient management tools also make it easy to pull patient lists, allowing you to send targeted communications. For example, you can pull the names of all patients who are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine but haven’t received it yet. With this capability, you can easily message families that may need more information or reassurance regarding the vaccine.

Stay Up-to-Date on Child Vaccinations

“Does the child standing in front of me need a vaccine?”

Our system is set up to help answer this question during every appointment.

PCC uses a vaccine logic workflow that alerts pediatricians if a patient is eligible or due for a vaccine during their appointment. This is a common workflow that can keep your patients up-to-date on vaccinations by taking advantage of regular touch points. PCC is also up to date on the latest ICD-10 codes for pediatric COVID-19 testing and vaccination to help you bill and code for every visit.

Many times, wellness visits are the best opportunity to discuss vaccinations. By making patient recall easy and ensuring that regular conversations take place, you can create scheduled time to have these important conversations.

Access Updated Benchmarks 

It can be easy to assume that you have the right steps in place to ensure that your patients are up-to-date on their vaccinations. But with so many steps in the vaccine delivery workflow, it can be easy to miss vaccination opportunities.

Our system integrates with dozens of state registries across the country, giving pediatricians access to vaccine records and making it easy to identify overdue and upcoming vaccination needs.

Our system looks to data benchmarks to help identify these blind spots. For example, when a pediatrician can see that they are in the 10th percentile for HPV vaccinations, it prompts them to examine how they can improve vaccine rates for their patients. Similarly, with our Dashboard tool, PCC can show pediatricians where they fall in terms of child COVID-19 vaccine delivery rates when compared with other practices across the nation.

Easily Access Provider and Patient Portals

We know how important it is for families and pediatricians to be able to communicate outside of office walls — especially when school, work, and childcare schedules are constantly changing. 

We make it easy for families to sign up for your patient portal, through which they can:

  • Exchange secure messages with their child’s pediatrician (including photos and forms). This not only helps pediatricians stay up-to-date with their patients but also can help give families peace of mind (and help keep their child out of urgent care or the ER).
  • Download and print forms, such as test results, for school and daycare, saving time for both the family and the pediatrician’s office. 
  • Have reliable access to their pediatrician outside of set appointment times, helping caregivers access the healthcare information they need at all hours.

For our pediatricians, the Pocket PCC mobile app creates an easy way for pediatricians to:

  • Check a child’s chart outside of the office (e.g., during after-hours phone calls) 
  • Look up the name of the family you ran into while running an errand
  • Make notes on the go
  • Send parents important clinical documentation via the patient portal
  • Check your upcoming appointments schedule
  • Sign notes, visits, and documents

Best of all, both our patient portal and Pocket PCC are included in your PCC subscription.

An EHR That Knows Your Practice

Want to learn more? Try us out — schedule a demonstration of our pediatric EHR, rated #1 by pediatricians by KLAS Research, to see what our platform can do for your practice. 

What most practices notice when demoing PCC is that, unlike many EHR teams, we’re quick to answer the phone and respond to your emails. Each practice has a dedicated Client Advocate who will know your name and your practice and is ready to help you solve any issues or questions that arise.

We don’t just stop at our systems; we also offer consulting services and pediatric practice management guidance to help make sure that your practice is running as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. 

Ready to see how PCC can level up your practice both during and after the pandemic? Contact our team and learn how PCC’s unique focus on pediatric practices can offer you long-term benefits.

PCC

PCC has been offering pediatric-specific software, support, and practice management advice for over 30 years. Our goal is to remove the obstacles so that pediatricians can serve communities, improve their practice, and remain independent.