EMR Vendors

A start company by the name of Drchrono has been focused on instituting EMR (electronic medical records) for physicians in order to simplify their professional lives. In total, they have raised $2.8 million in funds while being led by Yuri Milner along with other investors and Matt Cutts from Google. Previously, Drchrono had raised $1.3 million from Milner, Charles River Ventures, General Catalyst, Gmail creator and others.

Drchrono has accomplished streamlining of medical professionals through the use of iPad. Their iPad free application is designed to allow doctors to jot down notes, schedule appointments, issue prescriptions, schedule appointments, check lab results along with other medical record functions.

This has been made possible through president Obama’s administration which is currently offering very strong incentives for physicians to transfer their health records to an EMR format. Doctors can currently the start, finish and on-going management of the EMR process. Doctors who used Drchrono had received $44,000 in these incentives, last year.

Upgrades for additional storage may also be acquired by doctors along with medical billing functions. Previously, physicians had spent hundreds of dollars, each month for medical billing processing. Fortunately, for the convenience of the doctors, Drchrono can integrate with every insurance company – even those that are limited exclusively to paper billing.

With the application’s Billing Center, a doctor can register and receive their payments from iPad. Drchrono is also compliant with 5010, which is the government’s new requirement for billing procedures.

Drchrono made another iPad application available last August which is known as “OnPatient”. This app replaces the check-in process for a patient. This app is a replacement for the familiar clipboard with the check-in forms that patient had to fill out in the medical office waiting room. Originally, those forms required that the patient list their known medical problems, along with their medical forms, confidentiality agreement, etc.

The way that this works is by using the iPad to list items such as family history, medical insurance info and other information. After that is completed, a digital signature is used. The application is also designed to lock the patient into their section of the app so that they are unable to view information from other patients. This records security is, of course a critical factor.

The Drchrono free application had received high praise from physicians who are converting their patient records process to an EMR platform. Drchrono has recently announced that their application currently has over 15,000 registered medical providers with over 400,000 patients using the application.

When considering the pain and dangerous infection risks of bedsores, you may also consider the fact that they can cause permanent damage and even be life threatening if sepsis sets in. In addition to the patient medical concerns, there is also the consideration of the expense of treating complications. However, the Truman Medical Center in Kansas City has discovered that concerted medical efforts have made a big difference in the prevention of patient bedsores and other items that can endanger a patient’s health. A good part of these efforts involve the use of electronic medical records, according to Truman’s director of nursing infomatics, Amye Gilio.

Consider the way that a hospital treats and tracks patient bedsores (which are professionally known as pressure ulcers). Here, the patients that arrive at Truman Medical Center will receive a thorough exam in which it will be determined if a patient already has bedsores. These can appear in areas where the bone may rub the skin across a small section of the patient’s bed. The tailbone is a particularly vulnerable area for bedsores. If a bedsore is identified, then it is noted in an electronic chart which will then automatically trigger the necessary monitoring of that condition.

This electronic triggering of the bedsore monitoring will be in effect and will request treatment, even if the patient has come in for some other health issue that may require urgent treatment. In addition, the patient is also appropriately tagged for risks associated with bedsores according to their health profile. These factors will include; age, nutrition, wheelchair use, incontinence, time in bed and issues with mobility resulting from injury or chronic illness. The increased risk factors will determine the number of bedsore examinations. All of this is completely governed by EMR electronic charting entries that may even stipulate high tech beds in order to reduce pressure on the skin.

The EMR entries can also alert nurses of the risk of bedsores and will remind them to assist patients with movement difficulties or to have a patient roll over in their bed. This electronic fueled effort has paid big dividends when it comes to medical center budget. Between June 2010 and May 2011, Truman saw bedsores among its patients decline by 32%. In addition, that cut the costs of care by $1.39 million. That’s represents almost a rounding error for a hospital that provides $108 million a year in uncompensated patient care. But a million dollars is, as they say, still a million dollars. The one thing that can’t be measured in money is the alleviation of patient suffering and the possibility of actually saving a patient’s life.

In Cleveland, Ohio Federal officials have pointed out that EMR has achieved a great deal of success as a platform for accessing and sharing patient medical records with patients and the medical community in general. Because of this, they have also said that it is imperative that the medical community work faster to completely adopt this form of storing and disseminating patient medical records in order to facilitate using EMR as the sole platform for medical records. The stated goal is to use EMR for “delivering the right care to the right patient at the right time,” according to Kathleen Sebelius, who is the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

In order to help with this project, Sebelius has eased the rules that are applied to EMR adoption for hospitals and doctors who are planning to use this technology replace their current format for storing and dispersing patient medical records. It was also announced that a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey indicated that 52% of doctors who work through private offices are now planning to adopt EMR as their medical records platform. This is in response to the incentives that are being offered in order to mitigate the expenses involved with EMR  adoption.

It’s also been noted by the medical community that Cleveland stands out as being the area that has attracted national attention, over the past few years, by spearheading the nation’s move to adopt EMR. The region was visited by the U.S. president, Barack Obama, in 2009, as part of his endeavors to pass health care reform initiatives that total $27 billion for funds to be dispersed to hospitals and doctors who are making the move to EMR. These efforts, of course, also involve using a platform that can assure patients  of complete confidentiality when it comes to their medical records.

Historically, the region of Northeast Ohio has spent millions of dollars in EMR adoption, which makes it the most progressive area of the country when it comes to making the switch over to EMR. All of this boils down to one thing when it comes to patient care. An example of this would be seen in a situation where a patient becomes unconscious outside their home city and is rushed to the hospital.The doctors there would be able to electronically pull up that patient’s health record in order to begin immediate and accurate treatment without having to wait for a medical record to arrive. This can, in some cases, save a patient’s life.

A current example of the increasing use of EMR (Electronic Medical Records) in the healthcare industry can be seen with Stan Bjornstad in Dilworth, ND [1]. Bjornstad is in the process of continuing his education after having spent his career in the field of teaching and eventually ending up in business. But now, Mr. Bjornstad will be tasked with training Stanford Health staff in the use of an EMR software package that is being funded with nearly $8 million that is being targeted for the Fargo region for approximately 10,000 employees. Bjornstad is one of the 100 employees that have received temporary positions to assist with the transition to the Sanford One Chart electronic records system.

Training Center Conversion

In the Fargo area, a former Walmart has been converted into an EMR software training center. There, 30 classrooms have been created that can accommodate at least 300 staffers from Stanford each day for training. Bjornstad has pointed out that he plans to retire in April and take off for the summer (Bjornstad is a former school teacher). But he wanted to be working this winter and this assignment fits the bill nicely.  His earlier role as a teacher (plus the job timing) made this the perfect job for his plans.

Another individual who has been hired as a Fargo EMR trainer is Barnesville, MN resident Lucinda Craft, who recently received her degree in Community Health. Her hopes lie in the possibility of this temporary position turning into a permanent job in the same field. Previously, she had taught healthcare classes that involved elderly students.

Last week, Sanford filled 48 of the 100 temporary jobs with an average hiring rate of 90%. This figure was reported by Fargo region’s chief clinical information officer, Caryn Hewitt. She expressed amazement over the high quality and education levels of the applicants. She stated that about 75% of the applicants had college degrees – including master’s degrees. She also stated that the current state of the economy has probably accounted for this phenomenon.

Interestingly enough, these temporary positions mostly pay $10 per hour and are entitled “application assistant”.  However, there are a small number of positions that pay upwards of $15.78 or more per hour, depending on the applicant’s experience.

The software conversion is set up to take place in three different stages. In all, three Sanford locations have made their switch to EMR software access to patient medical records. The entire investment is slated to run $100 million over a period of several years.

References:

1. Sanford hires 100 for electronic record switch, Inforum, November 24, 2011, Patrick Springer, http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/341781/group/News/

One of the primary market leaders in ambulatory clinical systems, eClinicalWorks®, has announced that Woman’s Care Florida has chosen their comprehensive EHR (electronic health records) solution. Woman’s Care Florida is considered one of the largest fully integrated OB/GYN independent groups in the country. Its services span 52 locations and 165 providers. eClinicalWorks® is designed to connect the group with referring providers and hospitals  with an access to real-time clinical analytics and related medical information. This will greatly facilitate medical care for patients through the use of advanced functionality and immediate connectivity. This is in keeping with many medical facilities and groups who are switching over to EHR technology.

The continuous improvement of efficiency in medical care along with the quality of that care has always been the focus of Woman’s Care Florida, according to the President of Women’s Care Florida, Ignacio Armas, M.D. In addition, Dr. Armas has stated that recent attention has been directed towards the quality of reporting and coordination of reporting within the group. The advanced product development of eClinicalWorks® has been cited as the reason for its adoption. It was also stated that this move will promote the group to be far more efficient as an organization that functions as a leading healthcare provider.

Women’s Health Care Florida will be assisted with enhancing its group practice by eClinical Works through a comprehensive EHR package which will include specific specialty features such as OB flow sheets. Further efficiency will be achieved through the use of bi-directional interfaces between Women’s Health Care Florida’s labs and radiology departments. Additionally, the group will be connected with the hospitals labor and delivery departments that are responsible for annual deliveries of 15,000 infants. It has been noted that eClinicalWorks has a reputation of working closely with its customers when it comes to providing the specific tools needed for a medical specialty.

The CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks, Girish Kumar Navani, has ensured that his company will identify and provide the specific OB/GYN features that will be needed by Women’s Health Care Florida. This is designed to allow the group to excel through accurate, real-time medical information sharing with patients, providers and others that are involved in the health care process. As part of eClinicalWorks’ comprehensive EHR software solution, Women’s Care Florida will implement items that include the ability to enable clinicians to manage patient flow and information access. This will include referring physicians and the secure sending of clinical data and consult notes.

At Dr. Surinder Saini’s office in Newport Beach, California, the patients are no longer given forms attached to clipboards upon their arrival. They are now handed an iPad and make their entries via an electronic medium. There, they can choose the entries that will indicate allergies and various symptoms that they may be experiencing. An iPad is also used by the nurse when taking vital signs that are plugged directly into the electronic device. Dr. Saini can then pull up the information on his own iPad while being assisted with a list of potential diagnoses. The patients, themselves, for the most part are amazed at the procedure. After the patients have concluded their visit, the subsequent information is electronically stored in database along with the other patient records.

With incentives provided by the U.S. government and advances in technology, physicians are getting rid of their old paper records and integrating their offices with handheld EMR technology. As a result, there are a number of smaller Silicon Valley startup companies attempting to cash in on this innovation in order to compete with larger companies such as Allscripts (MDRX) and Cerner (CERN). The extra push comes in the form of the 2009 economic stimulus. This had set aside $27.4 billion in order to assist the transition to EMR.

Entrepreneurs and technology investors are proclaiming a “gold rush” similar to the boom in social medial. It is estimated that about 750 companies have joined in which is more than twice the number of existing EMR companies just two years ago. The main concern here is the number of companies that have products for sale along with money for capital – but very few customers, at present. This translates into companies that don’t have a future. Because of this, it is predicted that there will be inevitable consolidation.

The biggest problem that is being faced by these smaller companies is that there is still some uncertainty regarding the technology. This boils down to the ability of the different software programs to talk to one another in order to facilitate medical information sharing. Those who are tracking these things have noted that many of the current products may become obsolete as a result of this fact within 5-10 years. This consolidation is already in the works, it would appear. For example, In July, McKesson obtained insurance software supplier, Portico Systems, for $90 million and insurer Aetna (AET) purchased health information exchange company Medicity, back in December for $500 million. Even so, when all the smoke clears, the experts are predicting that the patients will be the beneficiaries of this changeover in medical record keeping.

In 2009, Congress set aside a stimulus fund for the express purpose assisting the medical profession to switch over to EMR (electronic medical records) from the traditional paper medical records. The goal is to save money while increasing the level of patient care through better communication between health care providers.

One of the early adopters of this new technology, Medical Specialists of the Palm Beaches CEO, Manny Fernandez, has stated that he believe the changeover will completely transform medical care through an increase inefficiency.

This was illustrated when Fernandez needed to make a trip to the ER at JFK Medical Center while complaining of chest pain. In this instance, the physician was able to make the determination not to place an order for costly radiation-based tests. This determination was based on the fact that he could see on iPhone that those tests had already been taken by Fernandez and the results were normal.

Fernandez was quick to point out how this scenario differed drastically from the past. In years gone by, Fernandez stated that the doctor wouldn’t have hesitated in ordering expensive tests that would have been proven to be redundant. When considering the savings over an extended period of time, one can see the advantages of EMR, Fernandez noted.

The first EMR incentive checks under the HITECH Act will be cut for qualifying doctors by Florida’s Agency for Health care Administration in September. $248M is expected to be handed out over the course of the next fiscal year according to Shelisha Coleman, an agency spokesperson.

Up to $44,000 can be applied for by each doctor that has made an investment in servers, computers, software, tech support and training. This money will be released over a period of five years. Those who treat a high percentage of patients receiving Medicaid can qualify for a higher payout of $64,000. Hospitals may be awarded up to several million in accordance with the payout formula.

However, it has been estimated that EMR computerized medical records will save the healthcare industry in excess of $70 billion through the elimination of duplicate and inefficient healthcare. This was called an optimistic number, since the Congressional Budget Office estimated the savings at about $17 billion (according to The Washington Post).

In part, because of its complexity, the health care industry has been cited as one of the last sectors of the United States economy to employ this technology. Another concern was the lack of standardization which means incompatibility between different software systems. Other past issues included the expense of the equipment along with software that exhibited errors and glitches.

The Centricity EMR (electronic medical record) and practice management system has been upgraded by GE Healthcare in order to assist doctors in their preparation for the change to ICD-10 codes and Meaningful Use. This is being done through CPS 10 (Centricity Practice Solution), which is the newest version of the GE EMR system. His will include several additional features and upgrades that will be geared towards this changeover.

The new CPS 10 will also support the HIPPA 5010 guidelines set down by ANSI (the American National Standards Institute). This means that claims may be submitted after the deadline that occurs on January 1^st, 2012.

In an announcement made last Tuesday, it was stated by officials that this latest version features a redesigned interfaced that was compiled according to suggestions by feedback from physicians. This limited the number of mouse clicks that are needed to proceed from the initial registration through the clinical evaluation. Practices can now also continuously monitor the financial cycle from insurance claims to accounts receivable to billing using a feature known as a financial performance dashboard. This will be accomplished using real-time data and layouts that can be customized. These are features that will enhance the workflow in practices that range in size from small to large.

In addition, there will be a package included in the software that will handle e-prescriptions, clinical messaging (with security features) and a patient portal. Quality reports will also be embedded in the EMR directly. It has been pointed out by the vice-president and general manager of GE Healthcare IT, Michael Friguletto, that this software package is the only EMR solution that is backed by a database of 20 million patient records and integrated quality reporting metrics. This was stated in “InformationWeek Healthcare”.

The patient database that he is referring to is the GE MQIC (Medical Quality Improvement Consortium). This is a quickly growing EMR research and reporting database of clinical data. This database allows data benchmarks for practices on a nationwide scale against similar sized practices with similar complexities, according to Figuletto.

A significant improvement in medical practice workflow has been reported by Internal Medicine Associates, which is based in Fargo, N.D. The clinical administrator there, Kathy Barrows stated that CPS 10 has clearly demonstrated an ability to optimize overall cost efficiency. Training costs were also minimized due to the system’s intuitive nature.

“We’re extremely happy with the results of our beta test transition results”, Barrows indicated.

AccuMed™ v12.10 Electronic Medical Records (EMR) from Accumedic Computer Systems eently received the “meaningful use” approval designation by the federal government. It has been certified by the Drummond group as a Modular HER (electronic Health Record). This certification indicates that the software is deemed capable of enabling health care providers to qualify under ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act).

AccuMed™ was specifically designed to address front and back office workflow streamlining and improve the reliability and consistency of healthcare documentation.  It will provide healthcare providers the ability to easily manage the health record process beginning with the initial patient appointment to electronic record documentation.

The information that is provided will be accessed virtually instantaneously. This is meant to improve patient care and to reduce operating costs while increasing profitability. The CEO of Accumedic Computer Systems, Inc., Mark Kollenscher has stated that health care providers are now able to utilize the software in order to achieve meaningful use and make improvement in the healthcare system. Healthcare users will also no qualify for ARRA incentive funds. He has indicated that his company is committed to improving and delivering innovations that are practical and reliable in the field of easily accessible management of medical data that will improve medical office operations on a daily basis.

The AccuMed™ software has been certified under the Drummond Group’s ONC-ATCB program as 2011/2012 compliant in accordance with standards and criteria set down adopted by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Those healthcare providers that use certified vendor EHR systems will qualify for federal stimulus funds upon the demonstration of technology “meaningful use”. This is a key part of the push by federal agencies to make improvements in the delivery of clinical care.

Accumedic Computer Systems, Inc. is an industry leader in medical care technology and has been providing services and solutions to healthcare professionals since 1977. The company is dedicated to providing a comprehensive set of healthcare technical solutions that address the current requirements initiated by the federal government. In addition the company is committed to creating solutions that address future additions and changes within the healthcare industry.

Drummond Group, Inc. is a leading software testing lab that provides efficient and effective EHR testing for medical information and healthcare technology hospitals and vendors. It is part of the ONC-ATCB (Office of the National Coordinator Authorized Testing and Certification Body) and works closely with hospitals and software vendors to certify EHR systems.