Physicians Practice - September 2008 - (Page 70) TECH SURVEY NOT UP TO SNUFF A full 60 percent of respondents don’t really like their practice management system. Most complain that their software doesn’t make it easy to generate reports. open and honest with the advantages and limitations of the specific product you are offering. Most products don’t seem to meet these needs, at least in our readers’ eyes. But it’s worth noting that it’s not impossible. David Willis, a family physician, told us how he and others are making the future real down in Ocala, Fla. Willis is with Ocala West Family Medicine as well as medical director for Healthy Ocala, a health information trust. He describes Healthy Ocala as a “grassroots effort to establish a health records exchange.” Basically, the idea is to provide one portal that lets physicians in the • Quit lying to us about how great your products are. • Marketing pitches do not correlate to actual technology performance. Ouch. Respondents also cried out for products that really, truly provide for continuity of care from hospital to practice to the ED — products that are intuitive and user-friendly yet easy to customize. community tap into a patient record no matter where they are in the system. “As patients transition from inpatient to outpatient or home health or [skilled nursing facility], everything will be aggregated. If the patient has given permission, the physician can go in and see everything that has happened with that patient. We’ve seen estimates that more than 60 percent of a physician’s time is spent collecting data. This should save us a tremendous amount of time.” Private practices can join in using any EMR. “Seeing what people go through, we know there is not a onesize-fits-all solution. We’re trying to create a model that will allow adoption at whatever rate,” says Willis. And who pays for all of this? Well, the hospital is providing some technology, but patients and major employers will be paying too, making the model self-sustaining. An unusual model, but it points to what may be a better future for technology — one that physicians find more user-friendly and affordable. • 70 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | SEPTEMBER 2008 WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM http://www.nmics.com http://www.nmics.com http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.