OpenEMR Integration Functionality and Features

Follow

OpenEMR is an electronic health record (EHR) and practice management application that can be downloaded with the click of a button. OpenEMR has a longstanding reputation as an open-source software (OSS) solution, after first being established 10+ years ago. It is ONC Complete Ambulatory EHR certified and qualifies physicians using the software for meaningful use incentive payments. EHR companies like CureCompanion have successfully integrated a mobile friendly interface layer on top of OpenEMR, running on a secure cloud.

OpenEMR includes a wide-range of features including:
• Patient Demographics
• Patient Scheduling
• Electronic Medical Records
• Medical Billing
• Clinical Decision Rules
• Patient Portal
• Reports
• Multilanguage Support
• Security
• Free Support

What is the only thing missing from OpenEMR? The answer is e-Prescribing. DoseSpot e-Prescribing can and has been integrated into an OpenEMR solution seamlessly and in just a short amount of time. e-Prescribing integration expands on the long list of features to include the routing of new and refill prescriptions electronically, drug-drug and drug-allergy interaction checking, ability to view a patient’s medication history and check their insurance eligibility and formulary information.

To learn more about DoseSpot e-Prescribing, visit www.DoseSpot.com.

One Touch EMR Prescribes with DoseSpot

Follow

Case Study:

One Touch EMR is designed to be simple and instinctive, allowing physicians to chart as fast as possible on their iPads and desktop computers. What makes their system unique is it was designed and developed by Dr. Robert Abbate, a physician who understands how physicians think and knows what is needed to provide an effective EMR solution that removes complexities rather than adding obstacles. Dr. Abbate designed One Touch EMR to replicate the medical school workflow students are trained in, making the solution more intuitive to physicians with the perks of being affordable and mobile. One Touch EMR is Stage 1 Meaningful Use certified and is used by more than 400 physicians across the United States.

e-Prescribing Integration:

During the planning and development stages of the One Touch EMR app, Dr. Abbate searched for an e-Prescribing platform that would seamlessly connect with his sleek and intuitive user interface. After thoroughly reviewing his options, Dr. Abbate selected DoseSpot because of its quick integration and easy to use user interface.

For the rest of this Case Study please visit www.DoseSpot.com/onetouchemr-case-study .

Meaningful Consent

Follow

Healthcare providers have long advised patients on making informed care decisions.  Now, patients can rely on providers for guidance on how their electronic patient information is shared.   Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) launched, Meaningful Consent, a new site for physicians to better help their patients navigate health information exchange (HIE).  Resources featured include customizable tools, law and policy information, videos and tutorials.

Key background information:

• HIE is the way healthcare providers share and access health information using technology
• HIEs share patient information between participating healthcare providers regarding a patient’s health information for treatment and payment
• Patient education and engagement is important to help them understand their options and outcomes of each option

Meaningful Consent is important to improve healthcare information technology and educate patients on HIE to foster greater trust in physician communication and health technologies. As the trend grows and HIEs evolve, it’s vital to have both physicians and patients engaged and informed to improve care and health outcomes.

Read the HSS press release here.

Healthcare Hashtags and Trends

Follow

Utilizing social media in Health IT has its challenges with complex terminology and acronyms.  Every time we tweet from @DoseSpot, the age old debate of whether to use #healthIT or #HIT comes up.  Recently launched, the Healthcare Hashtag Project curated by Symplur, a leading Healthcare Social Media Consultancy, created the project to help individuals and companies address these issues and to:

• Find where healthcare conversations are taking place
• Learn who to follow within a specialty or disease
• Follow trends from conferences in real-time or in archive

The project measures everything from trending hashtags and topics to the most talked about disease states and who is leading the conversations.  We plan to utilize this tool in the following ways:

1. Track trending hashtags when curating Tweets to increase readership
2. Follow influential health IT voices in social media
3. Get involved in conversations at medical meetings by utilizing official conference hashtags

Health Disparities to be Tackled in Meaningful Use Stage 3

Follow

While EHR companies are working to meet Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 2 criteria, industry leaders have been collaborating to develop MU Stage 3 requirements.  Last week, the Consumer Partnership for eHealth published an action plan, Leveraging Meaningful Use to Reduce Health Disparities Plan, to leverage MU Stage 3 requirements to reduce health disparities.

According to Healthcare IT News, the proposed action plan:

1. Recommends that EHRs have the ability to stratify patients’ specific conditions by variables such as race, ethnicity, language, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status and disability status.
2. Calls for greater use of patient data collected and shared through devices such as smartphones.
3. Emphasizes the need to ensure that electronic health information is effectively communicated to patients, so they are better able to utilize its benefits.

The goal is to address health disparities as part of Stage 3 requirements resulting in improved health outcomes and measurement nationwide.  Notable statistics surrounding disparities highlighted in the action plan include:

• 58 million people ages five and older speak a language other than English at home
• 56 million people live with a disability
• Women account for 50.8 percent of the population
• The U.S. Hispanic population reached 50.5 million, increasing 43 percent from the year 2000 and accounting for over half of the total population increase in the U.S.

Checking For Drug Interactions

Follow

Drug-drug and drug-allergy interaction checks are becoming a new standard in electronic health record and e-Prescribing solutions.  Interaction checks are required for meaningful use and are being used by more physicians every day.

Online drug-interaction checking tools are a great at home resource.  They evaluate both prescription and over the counter medication regimens including vitamins and supplements and flag all interactions in real-time.  As online resources continue to pop up, the latest being from CVS, we compiled a list below of valuable drug interaction tools to jumpstart your search:

• CVS
• Drugs.com
• Healthline
• Medscape
• Walgreens

Health IT in the Greater Boston Area

Follow

DoseSpot is in the healthcare zone along with 9 other awesome health IT companies here in the Greater Boston area. Learn more about what we’re all up to!  

Athenahealth (Watertown, MA): Cloud-based services for EHR, practice management and care coordination.

Claricode (Waltham, MA): Medical software development and application integration services exclusively for the healthcare industry.

CoPatient (Waltham, MA): Web platform to help consumers identify and resolve medical billing errors and overcharges.

DoseSpot (Waltham, MA): Surescripts Certified e-Prescribing platform offering solutions to medical and dental software companies.

Eyenetra (Somerville, MA): Eye care platform enabling on-demand eye testing, remote access to vendors and providers through eye diagnostics on mobile phones.

Ginger.io (Cambridge, MA): Web-based dashboard for researchers and healthcare providers and a mobile phone app for patients.

iMD-soft (Needham, MA): Clinical information systems and EMRs for critical, perioperative and acute care.

iQuartic (Cambridge, MA): EHR analytics for risk profiling, disease management, and quality benchmarking.

QMedic (Cambridge, MA): Passive wearable sensing platform and personal emergency response solution that provides 24/7 connectivity between seniors and remote caregivers.

QuantiaMD (Waltham, MA): Free online community where practicing physicians share practical medicine.

…Congrats to this week’s DoseSpot #TuesdayTweetup winner Michael Planchart, @theEHRGuy.  Stay tuned for next week’s #TuesdayTweetup for another chance to be featured on eprescribing.org.

Meaningful Use: Stage 1 vs. Stage 2

Follow

With Stage 2 right around the corner many EHRs, physicians, dentists, and other ‘eligible professionals’ are seeking guidance. So here it is! Today’s blog post features a Stage 1 vs. Stage 2 Comparison Table for 3 Meaningful Use Core Objectives.

More comparisons are coming…stay tuned!

….Congrats to last week’s DoseSpot #TuesdayTweetup winner @jasmith1437 and runner up @techydoc.

—

Stage 1 Objective: CPOE

Use CPOE for medication orders directly entered by any licensed healthcare professional who can enter orders into the medical record per state, local and professional guidelines

Stage 1 Measure: CPOE

More than 30% of unique patients with at least one medication in their medication list seen by the EP have at least one medication order entered using CPOE

Stage 2 Objective: CPOE

Use computerized provider order entry (CPOE) for medication, laboratory and radiology orders directly entered by any licensed healthcare professional who can enter orders into the medical record per state, local and professional guidelines

Stage 2 Measure: CPOE

More than 60% of medication, 30% of laboratory, and 30% of radiology orders created by the EP during the EHR reporting period are recorded using CPOE

—

Stage 1 Objective: e-Prescribing

Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically (eRx)

Stage 1 Measure: e-Prescribing

More than 30% of unique patients with at least one medication in their medication list seen by the EP have at least one medication order entered using CPOE

Stage 2 Objective: e-Prescribing

Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically (eRx)

Stage 2 Measure: e-Prescribing

More than 50% of all permissible prescriptions written by the EP are compared to at least one drug formulary and transmitted electronically using Certified EHR Technology

—

Stage 1 Objective: Record Demographics

Record demographics: Preferred language, Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Date of birth

Stage 1 Measure: Record Demographics

More than 50% of all unique patients seen by the EP have demographics recorded as structured data

Stage 2 Objective: Record Demographics

Record demographics: Preferred language, Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Date of birth

Stage 2 Measure: Record Demographics

More than 80% of all unique patients seen by the EP have demographics recorded as structured data

Source: http://go.cms.gov/12r3Gsc

E-Prescribing 101

Follow

Electronic prescribing is not just the ability to send prescriptions electronically to pharmacies. E-Prescribing can also increase care quality in a number of ways:

• E-prescribing makes sure that the prescriber is providing enough specific information for the pharmacist to fill the prescription, including the name of the drug, the dosage, its physical form, the route, and the physician’s instructions.
• Electronic prescribing software eliminates the time and effort of trying to understand the prescriber’s handwriting, as well as the chance of an error in that translation.
• E-prescribing significantly reduces the chance that the prescriber’s intentions are misinterpreted.
• E-prescribing is often used in conjuction with clinical decision support to ensure that any drug to drug interactions or drug to diagnosis issues are found and reported to the physician before the prescription order is completed.

Electronic prescribing is considered one of the most important areas of Healthcare IT, which is why Medicare created payment incentives for physicians who use a qualified e-prescribing system. In 2009, the incentives are an increase of 2% in revenue for each patient when e-prescribing is used. Due to the 2009 HITECH Act, electronic prescribing is required as part of any EMR (EHR) which qualifies for Medicare reimbursement in 2011.