I am using it as a single practitioner for approximately 18 months. I will be adding a new partner in the new year.
I started to use Synapse around March this year but have trouble getting my associate to use it. So we have two systems in our office, I am paperless and my associate still uses paper charts - enough confusion for the secretaries, unfortunately. []
Paperless is good [H] What's the problem with your associate? Computer illiterate? No keyboard skills? Does he dictate?
[quote user="qilin"]I started to use Synapse around March this year but have trouble getting my associate to use it. [][/quote] Is he a neurologist ?
SHE is computer illiterate, can type fairly well, but is used to dictating to a dictaphone and using a transcriptionist. And according to her, the main reason she won't use it is because she is used to looking at everything (reports, notes)onpaper but not on computer screen! Yes, she is a neurologist too.
With a big enough LCD screen in front of her she will probably change her mind! Or, does she not watch TV either and only read newspapers??
Ha! I thought about the same thing, I persuaded her to get a 22 inch monitor with a new Dell several months ago, now it's sitting on her desk collecting dust. She is still using her many year old laptop sitting in front of her 22 inch LCD! Now you know how difficult for people to change. I may just talk to her and give her new computer to the receptionists if she still doesn't use it.
Get her to output the laptop VGA to the monitor as a baby step to using the real computer. She is one of the many dictation only docs I tell Graham about. I think Synapse should have easier options for her.
This is how I would approach the issue: 1. I would get the reception staff to enter minimal demographics for her patients as well. 2. After she has signed off on reports, scan them into Synapse and then file 3. After they get back the Word file from the transcriptonist .. pasted it into the encounter for that day. Then wait a month or too and then show her how it works ... She would actually end up changing nothing to her current workflow, but you would end up paperless.
If she is willing to read reports from computer screen, problem would have been solved already. We can just have the receptionist upload her word transcripts without even pasting to the consult part and stay paperless. The problem is not the diction part, it's the old habit she is used to: she prefer to flipping through a paper chartwhen facing a patient, instead of scolling down a list on a PC, click and look at a LCD screen.
That's okay, you can keep paper notes for her but get them into the PC. Let her read the paper reports and just scan them in after she has done this. I guess she does this to get a feel for who the patient is ... to remind herself. But eventually she will see it is better to have them on screen ...
The most expensive system is maintaining a paper chart and an electronic chart. I don't suggest doing both. In this case, it should be paper charts, unless she wants to make the leap.
There's often an intermediate phase where you have both .. and sure it's expensive. Once you can demonstrate to her the effectiveness, you can ditch the paper charts. It's a gamble of course ... that you can drag this colleague into the 21st century.
