EMRs Focus on Making Work Flow
Electronic medical record system vendors are addressing the varying needs of healthcare providers. New versions and upgrades include a stronger focus on physician workflow, interoperability with tools such as mobile applications and speech recognition, and the ability to tailor systems. However a user chooses to customize an EMR system, it’s clear that EMR vendors will showcase outcomes and an overall ability to interoperate and connect.
Cerner Corp. (Booth #2440) is expanding upon the ‘All Together’ client presentation approach that was successfully debuted at last year’s HIMSS. Cerner’s clients will again “run the booth” through client theater presentations that focus on how their organization addresses a specific condition across various roles and venues. Executives and clinicians from featured client organizations are showcasing the workflow and condition scenario in their own domains.Eclipsys (Booth #5336) is presenting the theme “What Outcomes Make You Smile?” and Eclipsys clients are on hand throughout the conference to share what outcomes they have achieved in improving patient safety, quality and cost-efficiency of care and satisfaction using Eclipsys solutions. Eclipsys is demonstrating how Sunrise Clinical Manager and its integrated modules provide clinicians the tools they need to provide high-quality, efficient care.
For oncologists and other specialists, to general practitioners who focus on family medicine, Eclipsys is highlighting Sunrise Ambulatory Care’s clinician-centered workflows and how the patient-centric EMR enables physicians to improve care delivery.
One factor that has blocked broader adoption of EMR technology has been concerns held by many physicians regarding exposing their practices’ financial information to affiliated hospitals. Eclipsys partner Athenahealth will demonstrate how the company’s combined offering for physician practices integrates a practice’s clinical and financial processes and enables practices to share patient information with the extended healthcare enterprise while maintaining independent financial records. Eclipsys’ professional services team also will be at the booth.
Epic (Booth #4513) is showing how its applications will all share a single patient-centric repository of clinical, access and financial data, thus integrated across the enterprise. The main product categories are enterprise clinical suite, enterprise access suite, enterprise revenue suite, enterprise foundation, departmental and ancillary systems, specialty modules and eHealth Suite which includes web access products that let organizations reach out to patients and affiliates.
Epic also is showcasing the most recent additions to MyChart, including services for hospitalized patients and their proxies: a schedule of the day’s tests and medications along with notes from the care team. Rather than offer a personal health record separate from the EMR, which would rely on patient input, Epic’s MyChart application, released in 1999, gives patients and their proxies (such as children’s parents) access to the same record used by their physicians and other caregivers. MyChart, with 1 million users in the U.S., services include secure messaging, appointment scheduling, bill payment, and prescription renewal requests.
Meditech (Booth #310) is displaying its latest software, Client/Server Release 5.6, which provides a major advance in the design and workflow navigation of MEDITECH systems, the company says. Specific new products being shown include Oncology Management and Scanning & Archiving.
The new release includes a new user interface with role-based desktops and streamlined workflows for more efficient care delivery. The software includes evidence-based medicine, e-prescribing, and medication reconciliation features to enable hospitals to measure outcomes, tailor treatments, implement standards of care, and manage chronic diseases.
Misys Healthcare Systems (Booth #2111) is highlighting its initiatives towards supporting interoperability by sharing customer success stories to encourage other providers to adopt interoperable EHR software. Also, the Center for Community Health Leadership, a Misys initiative, is on hand to discuss million-dollar grants in EHR software that the organization has begun awarding to communities in an effort to spearhead the widespread adoption on a local community level. Misys is discussing a product roadmap for a new ambulatory solution. The product includes e-prescribing, a differential diagnosis tool, and high definition controlled medical vocabularies.
Misys also is displaying the latest versions in its Misys Optimum family designed to increase patient information sharing across organizations. Misys Connect is a web-based data sharing solution that meets and exceeds the standards from the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) initiative. Misys CPR is an EHR solution delivering enterprise clinical management with a computerized patient record (CPR) and computerized physician order entry (CPOE) solution. The new release of Misys CPR continues its transition to a browser-based solution.
PatientKeeper (Booth #328) is showcasing the fourth generation of its popular physician information system now with more than 10,000 physician users. Over 20 integrated portal and mobile software applications will be demonstrated on the exhibit floor, showing how PatientKeeper supports physicians throughout the entire day. The company also is demonstrating RFID, speech recognition, and room monitoring functionality.