Using Technology Management to Build Capacity and Create Sustainability:
• Clinic operations are tightly integrated with technology and information systems, making it essential that a clinic’s executive- level technology manager has a broad organizational perspective, including knowledge of both technology and operations;
• Sustained investments are made in technology management, planning, and training;
• Communication and coordination are valued - leaders from all disciplines are consulted when identifying issues and needs and determining priorities;
• Clinics provide appropriate support to their users with managed resources, whether staff-based, consultant-based, or a combination of the two;
• Technology staff, as well as vendors and consultants, are supervised, evaluated, and held accountable by management;
• Technology projects are structured, budgeted, managed, and evaluated by management.

Highly functioning technology management structures position a clinic to be proactive in their use of technology rather than addressing needs on a crisis-by-crisis basis. In this manner, clinic operations are more effectively supported and technology investments are maximized.  For large clinics that require more planning, EHR Doctors has vendor independent consultants that can help you pick the right product to fits your needs.

Contracts For Electronic Medical Records to Provider of Open source technology Services

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, announced that EHR Doctors, Inc. and fifteen other companies (consisting of a combination of healthcare providers, health-IT systems integrators, and networks) have received a total of $17.4 million in contract awards to provide electronic medical records (EMRs) to the agency. These EMRs, which will be sent through the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN), “will improve our disability programs and provide better service to the public,” Commissioner Astrue said. “We’ve seen a significant increase in disability applications. To process them, the agency sends more than 15 million requests annually for medical records to healthcare providers. This largely paper-bound workload is generally the most time-consuming part of the disability-decision process. The use of health IT will dramatically improve the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of this process, reducing the cost of making a disability decision for both the medical community and the American taxpayer,” he added.

EHR Doctors was pleased with the announcement. “Our unique open-source approach to health IT and Health Information Exchnage will provide our partner hospitals with a valuable system for a fraction of the cost,” said Gerard Reeder, vice-president of business development of EHR Doctors. EHR Doctors will connect to Social Security using the NHIN’s open-source Connect software.  This contract with Social Security is a remarkable opportunity to demonstrate the power and reliability of open-source medical software and the communities that support it.

The contract awards are funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It will require EHR Doctors and its partner hospitals, with a patient’s authorization, to send medical records through the NHIN to the Social Security Administration. The NHIN, a safe and secure method for receiving access to EMRs over the Internet, is an initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services supported by multiple government agencies and private-sector entities including EHR Doctors.

Microsoft HealthVault is a new online ecosystem that gives patients the means to collect, organize and share their families’ health information.  Once patients sign up for a free HealthVault account, they get access to applications and tools created by trusted healthcare authorities to track, manage and learn about health issues.  More importantly, patients can opt to share information such as medical history with their doctors and other caregivers, and in turn receive test results, prescription information, and other data from their doctors’ EHRs.

EHR Doctors has a long history of collaborating with Microsoft. In fact, we are on of the first EHR companies to connect with HealthVault.  We’ve built compatibility between the VistA Office EHR solution and HealthVault so that physicians, upon request from their patients, can send a copy of the patient’s medication list, conditions, and allergies to their HealthVault account.  Once in HealthVault, a patient can use that data electronically in any other HealthVault enabled consumer health application such as a PHR or Wellness solution

Physicians can use connected clinical systems to receive this data. Easier access to a broader range of information from patients can help physicians provide better service and more efficient, informed care.

This is just another great way for doctors to use technology to let their patient interact with the EHR.

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Are clinicians represented in system planning?
2. Does your organization regularly evaluate how well computer systems are supporting frontline clinic operations?
3. Are technology projects designed, completed, and evaluated in an orderly and efficient manner?
4. Are computers and networks running smoothly, and are technical support costs under control?
5. Is your clinic taking full advantage of the capabilities of your practice management systems?
6. Are new modules or functionalities successfully added regularly to improve clinic operations?

If you answered yes to all these questions then you exhibit characteristics of solid technology management at the organizational level and successful technology project management in the trenches. If not, the good news is that something can be done about it with hard work but minimal cost and disruption.  Contact us for a free consult.

NHIN Document Services rely on the ability to convert the patient record in a system to a CCR and/or CCD so that they are readable by the machines or at least the humans requesting them. VistA currently has support for CCR and CCD documents to be exported from VistA.

Add added benefit of support CCR/CCD is a health care organization can try VistA, for example on EHR Doctors VistA on ec2 Service, without being worried about being locked into VistA. With CCR, you can export all of your patients medical records into a standard format which can be imported into other EHR .  At EHR Doctors we dont want to lock you into our software like other vendors do, we want you to use it because it is the best EHR out there

The Cloud Based Electronic Medical Records/Electronic Health Records is server software remotely hosted on secure server hardware that you access via the internet.  In the case of VistA EHR, the client software that you use on a day-to-day basis is installed on the local computer(s) in your office.   This is the same case if the server is brought in-house..

Cloud-based applications are usually accessed by paying a rental or service fee. As the server is not located in your office your initial setup costs are almost negligible with the added advantage that all technical aspects of the server are managed by EHR Doctors, it is secure and HIPAA compliant. It also allows you to access all of your information at any time, from any place with internet access. Physicians feel secure that all information is backed up, and some also have it backed up in their office.  We use the highly reliable eC2 cloud, the same network of servers used to run Amazon.com, the largest online retailer, so service reliability is 99%.

The disadvantage of Cloud EMR/EHR is that you are relying on your office internet connection to access your data. In a weather emergency or interruption from your ISP can cause service outages. The same risk applies to so-called “Web Based EMRs” offered by some companies (EClinicalWorks for example).

With VistA, because you own your data on the cloud and you have 100% secure access to all data and other source code, you can always keep backup electronic copies of the records that are suitable to view for contiuity of care in the event the internet goes down.  Many Web based EMR’s actually retian ownership of the records and try to “lock you in”.  With our Cloud based solution, there are no barriers.  All of your data can be exported easily to standard CCR formats One option for mitigating the risk is to install two internet connection at your office from two separate ISPs.  Not only is this faster, it is redudant/fault tolerant, and will provide better service.

The In house Client/server EMR/EHR model on the other hand generally faster becasue it runs inside your local area network.  Security issues are the same becasue local networks are sometimes less safe than the internet becasue of the lack of encryption in transit.  We solve these issues using VPN connections on the LAN as well. Depending on the number of patients and the size of the practice you might want to verify whether you can justify the vital seconds that are spent everyday waiting for data to transfer over the internet in a web based model especially during the peak traffic hours of internet usage. EHR Doctors can still help you with server management and support services to minimize your vulnerablity to the risk of theft, fire, and hard drive failure.

Medical Transcribing plays a crucial role within health systems throughout the world, creating a written record of medical examinations and other procedures. The importance of a good medical transcript is extraordinary, demanding levels of accuracy approaching perfection. On the surface it would seem that technology should be able to automate medical reporting tasks. However, the adoption of new technology-based techniques has been limited because the medical record must be text-based and highly precise. For over 50 years, medical dictation has relied on a system of recording the health care provider’s voice and using a transcription service to convert the voice dictation record captured during a health encounter into text. After the exam or procedure, the transcription service manually transcribes the record from the dictaphone recording.

Now, you can use computer voice recognition to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a health care provider by reducing the manually intensive and expensive process of transferring dictations of medical procedures and exams from audio files into digital or text records without outside transcription services. Due to an increase in computing power, personal computer can now run voice recognition software using advanced processing techniques can achieve near 100% accuracy. The health care provider can now use this powerful technology and combine the efficiency of voice recording with the ability to convert the recorded file on his PC later. Called “voice writing”, this method is derived from the method of dictating where the reporter would dictate into a telephone which was connected to an analog tape recorder then have an outside service transcript from that recording after the fact. Voice writing employs the same technique only the telephone is connected to a computer which utilizes voice recognition software. Voice writing allows the user to record his/her own recorded speech into text. After the transcription occurs on the computer, the user can edit the report to make sure it accurately reflects their intent. This saves costs and contributes to a more accurate and timely record.

Contact EHR Doctors to find out how you can save your practice money by using dragon medical dictation service that can cost up to 1/10 as much as you pay now.