https://www.FormedicMHQ.com/emrupdate We might be able to learn a few things about their implementation of online communication.
Having clinical history taking done within the scope of the EMR is of course superior from a clinical and programming aspect. I guess the major question would be would the IMH type be best in a synapse.exe environment or www yahoo GUI. pluses and minuses each way.
I'd imagine that I would integrate with Synapse EMR first, and then once acceptable, allow users to use it on the portal. Since building a decent instant history machine requires 1000s of man hours, I don't expect it to appear on the portal soon!
We just signed up for the free gadgets (tablet Cs) and patient check in system. Check it out - at phreesia.com I have been able to save all the data as PDF and XML files (hoping to import it into the EMR I choose to use in the neer future. This captures the demographics, med list, past med history etc as the patient waits and checks in in my waiting room. The data is then available to any other doctor who has this system. Hope, I can at least get the pdf files attached and sorted with autofile feature. Integration with Phreesia may save - re-inventing the wheel. Ajay (Sanford, NC, USA)
I've not tried Phreesia, but I read the following on the practiceimprovement list - all personal opinion of course. "I contactedPhreesia, and spoke with Mike Davidoff, one of the founders and the individual demonstratingPhreesiaon their Internet website. We spoke for quite a long time. I wanted to make sure that I had a very good understanding of what and how he was trying to do, if what he was providing would have any benefit to ideal micro-practice, and what if any downsides were there.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial">Specifically, drug companies pay him for however many hits there are by a patient to their sponsored information once the patient goes through the registration, demographics, medical history and complaint pages. The information is not presented in a drug neutral format, like "if you have a problem with headaches and insomnia, you should talk to your doctor, this message courtesy ofPfizer", rather it is presented in the form of the benefits of a particular drug, targeted to the individual patient, since the patient has toldPhreesiawhat medical problems they have. Although HIPAA compliant, I reviewed their business associate agreement with Mr. Davidoff, and there is nothing to preventPhreesiafrom using the patient information in whatever ways they see fit, as long as those ways are HIPAA compliant. Essentially, it is designed to target individual patients with their individual problems at the point of entry to the doctors office, before the doctor sees the patient, and with a specific medication, presented in the form of educational material. It is obvious this is designed to alter our prescribing habits, having recruited the patient as the drug company representative. This program is designed to do something far more dangerous than at first look. This is not just advertising; this is a direct insertion of the drug company with its financial interest into the very heart of the doctor-patient relationship, performed by none other than the patient, at the direction of the drug company. At best, any discussion of the advertised product merely takes additional time, and time away from the patient's needs, the very thing we need to do our job, and for which we get paid. At worst, this helps to create an adversarial relationship, where the patient may think that the doctor is not doing everything he or she can for the patient's benefit. The fact thatPhreesiais offering this service for free as long as a certain number of patients per week is met, and as long as the sponsored information is not totally removed, is laughable. This is a bl
YES!! I do share the <u>"anti drug company sentiment"</u> However there are always two sides to any discussion. Where as by the virtue of being on the forum we are looking for economical alternatives to EMR, this the only a small piece in the big picture. I did sign up to it<u> (phresia) - to learn </u>what they have done and experience firsthand what the technology has to offer. As for my patients - only one out of ten has any good thing to say about this system - they HATE to do their own data entry, me or the nurse end up doing it for them (we would do it anyway in our own EMR system. I think there is some plus'es to it, as we design new systems we can learn from the existing ones. The formedic is FULLY drug company funded as well. The money spent by the drug companies in their advertising is helping us in some ways. (saving me spending thousands of $$s in a comparative system, for one) They have already spent the money - I don't have !!!!! I have yet to see one patient who really clicked on the "educational" button, which brings up only a list of articles to read - who has the time - really, to read all that on the small print on an LCD screen anyway. Drug advertising is minimal. For now, I am experimenting with it (and....it is free) - still hope to integrate it with the EMR, I finally go with, it does write XML-CCR and PDF files. I can post some example files if any one cares to see. Ajay
