If you’re considering an electronic health records (EHR) system for your LTPAC or assisted living facility, our experience with senior care clients tells us that there are two popular choices: PointClickCare and MatrixCare.
Which should you choose for your facility? Well, it depends.
First, let’s get the basics out of the way. Both are built with a strong LTPAC focus, which separates them from EHR systems such as Epic or Cerner that are more often found in hospitals and integrated health systems. Both are strong on HIPAA security compliance. Both include electronic medication administration record (eMAR) functionality. Both are delivered through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, which means you don’t have to maintain an onsite server, and updates, patches and data backups are handled for you. In our experience, both companies offer great support.
They differ in a few ways as well, and while we can’t recommend one system over the other, we’ll share those differences. Which system you choose depends on which of these issues matters more to you.
- Device support. MatrixCare is a Microsoft partner, and that’s reflected in the operating systems and devices it supports. The clinicians’ devices must run the Windows operating system and Internet Explorer. MatrixCare supports non-Windows client devices via either a Citrix virtualization client or Windows Terminal Services. While those scenarios are well-documented and supported, running the Citrix or Windows Terminal Server is the responsibility of your IT team. On the other hand, PointClickCare supports desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones that run Windows, MacOS, ChromeOS or Android, and all of the popular web browsers (although not all modules support all combinations). If you want to run PointClickCare in a virtualized environment, it’s not technically supported by the company, but some facilities are doing so successfully.
- User Interface. The MatrixCare user interface is sleeker and more modern, but in our opinion, this is mostly a matter of aesthetics. Both are equally functional.
- Reporting and Analytics. PointClickCare offers reporting, but creating custom reports and analytics requires using a feature called Data Relay. It allows you to copy most of the data onto another server for running analytics. By contrast, MatrixCare has an Analytics Suite module that lets you make use of Microsoft Azure and PowerBI to develop analytics and create custom dashboards. Both of these scenarios require some degree of knowledge by your users and IT team.
- Audit trails. Our clients report that MatrixCare is stronger in this area, particularly at survey time.
- Redundancy. Both systems recommend that facilities have two Internet connections in case one connection goes down. However, in the event of an outage, PointClickCare suggests hourly backups of the eMAR records so clinicians can revert to paper charting. MatrixCare provides a mobile app that can work offline, and syncs the records back to the eMAR module once the connection becomes available again.
At FIT Solutions, we’re familiar with both of these senior-care EHR systems and our IT specialists are happy to support you, regardless of your choice. If you would like to know more, give us a call at 888-339-5694.
