Physicians Practice - Tech Guide 2008 - (Page 51)

IT ENHANCEMENT TIME, AT LAST, FOR AN UPGRADE? BY SHIRLEY GRACE STILL USING ANCIENT PRACTICE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE? MAYBE YOU’RE READY FOR SOMETHING NEW. Douglas Blair, senior director of physician information systems at Mount Carmel Health System in central Ohio, describes its preupgrade practice management software as “essentially broken for us. My understanding is that it has code in it that’s over 30 years old.” From a technology standpoint, 30 years is analogous to a geologic age. Even with regular upgrades, older systems — often running on a ﬁrst-generation Unix platform — simply cannot keep pace with today’s data-handling needs. Yet when Physicians Practice surveyed physicians on their technology usage last year, we discovered that practice management systems (PMS) seem to be on many ofﬁces’ IT back burners. Nearly three in 10 practices told us that that their PMS is at least ﬁve years old, while 10 percent bought their systems more than a decade ago. Is this because practices are so happy with their systems they just can’t bear to part with them? Hardly. Only one-third of the 365 responding practices report being satisﬁed with their PMS; six in 10 wish their sytem could do more than it does. So what gives? Why is this piece of medical technology lagging behind its glitzier cousin, the EMR? If you’ve waited too long to upgrade this important administrative tool, read on to discover the beneﬁts and mechanics of doing so. IT IS BROKE, BUT DON’T FIX IT Bristol Park Medical Group in Santa Ana, Calif., upgraded its PMS’ software many times, but the practice ultimately found it needed someWWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM thing more functional and modern. It went with a system that uses stateof-the-art PMS technology platforms: a relational database management system, or RDBMS, and its communication partner, structured query language, or SQL. But if your practice operates at a more modest level of technology know-how, fear not. An RDBMS/SQL implementation can hide its geeky guts behind a socially adept Windows-based facade and still offer an intuitive and comprehensive solution to your practice’s administrative needs. Such needs include ﬂexible scheduling, smooth and effective billing and claims management, and customizable “practice adviser” system start-up screens that greet you every morning with a useful, near-real-time snapshot of your practice’s administrative health. Do your cranial muscles ache from keeping an almost constant ﬁsheye on your front-desk workers, because otherwise they would shirk posting copays during patient processing? With an upgraded system, you can avoid that pain with nannytype “auto-ﬂow” tools, a series of steps that users must follow — and that are mandated by you. Modern practice management software also has advantages in terms of easing user interface, starting with graphics. First designed when character-based, low-resolution monochrome monitors were the norm, legacy systems are easy to spot with their green or amber screens, chunky ASCII-standard text, and quarter-inch-high blinking cursors. Today, high-resolution LCD ﬂat screens grace many administrators’ desks. Through these monitors, the TECHNOLOGY GUIDE | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | 51 http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physicians Practice - Tech Guide 2008

Physicians Practice - Tech Guide 2008 TG Cover Story: Protect Your Practice and Sleep Better Operations: Paperless? Not Quite The Internet: You've Got Mail...Or Do You? Patient Relations: Attention Grabbers The Tech Doctor: All About Blogs Lessons Learned: 'My EMR Nightmare...And Why I'd Do It Again' Scheduling: No More No-Shows The Marketplace: Who's Got Your Back IT Enhancement: Time, at Last, for an Upgrade? Online: 'Yup, I'm a Junkie. And Proud of It.' In the Office: New Technologies in the Workplace: Blessing or Curse? Web Surfing: If You Build It...

Physicians Practice - Tech Guide 2008

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