Cardiovascular Business - July/August 2008 - (Page 19)

“If you don’t have a firm commitment from leadership about the value of an emr, don’t implement it.” Dan Caldwell, MBa, executive director, Little rock Cardiology Clinic, Little rock, ark. months, no one ever wants to go back to the paper system. “I think it’s a mistake to stay with analogue ECGs. They are certainly useable, but you are leaving aside great capabilities, such as the ability with the EMR to compare ECGs over various timeframes,” Caldwell says. One of the more laborious parts of the conversion to digital was scanning all the old paper ECG records. Caldwell’s practice handles about 20,000 ECGs a year. The electrocardiograms need to be scanned at a high resolution so they are useable, particularly for zooming in to look at the tracings. Consequently, they eat up a lot of disk space, he said. Their new system, the IQmark Digital ECG (Midmark Diagnostics Group), creates a much smaller image than a scanned image. When the ECG is pulled up for review, the software writes the image each time and displays it as a graphic. The image itself is not stored. Caldwell adds that the Midmark system makes it easy to line up ECGs in windowing and compare the old with the new. “It’s a great analysis tool for electrophysiologists,” he says. Rather than deal with carts that must be rolled into rooms, digital systems like Midmark require a set of cables that plug into the workstation. “My medical assistants and nurses walk around with their ECG cables around their neck, like a stethoscope. It’s very portable. They can take an ECG anywhere you have a NextGen workstation,” Caldwell says, The medical assistants and physicians like that the ECG is McKesson’s Horizon Cardiology cardiovascular information system contains an eCG management module that enables physicians to conﬁrm eCG exams from remote locations. available with other information such as vital stats, history, physical and medication use. In the old days, the ECG had to be printed and sometimes it would be with the chart and sometimes it would not, he says. “Today, the ECG is always there to be viewed by the physician with all other relevant information.” Caldwell says one of the chief benefits of the EMR is 24/7 access to the ECG—anytime, anywhere. Before the digital ECG system, the on-call physician had to have many more discussions with either the patient, ER doctors or someone else in the hospital regarding the ECG. Now, the on-call physician gets the latest data Digital ECG: One Part of the IT Solution When timothy attebery was Ceo of South Carolina Heart Center in Columbia, he oversaw the implementation of a cardiovascular information system (Soarian Cardiology, Siemens medical Solutions). Like similar systems, Soarian provides an integrated view of patient data, images, eCg and physiological waveforms that can be accessed anytime, anywhere. the improvement in workflow offered by the ability to have all relevant patient data available in real-time translated into enhanced revenues, says attebery, now the Ceo of Cardiovascular associates in Kingsport, tenn. For example, attebery suggests that increased efficiencies leading to one more cath procedure weekly would significantly impact the bottom line. earlier this year, Philips medical Systems released a new version of its Xcelera cardiology information management system, which offers support for nuclear quantification, cardiac Ct and mr images and electrophysiology, among others. the system also provides “access to relevant eCgs from market-leading eCg management systems from multiple vendors,” according to the company. Kirk Spencer, mD, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago says that bringing together the cardiac patient’s clinical information from multiple exams and procedures is “imperative to delivering quality care while controlling costs.” CardiovascularBusiness.com Cardiovascular Business 19 http://CardiovascularBusiness.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cardiovascular Business - July/August 2008

Cardiovascular Business - July/August 2008 Table of Contents First Word Cover Story: Planning for the Ideal Cath Lab Requires the Multidisciplinary Approach Clinical Study Digest: Cell Phone Technology Speeds Ecgs As Real-Time 3d Echo Matures, It Finds a Clinical Niche Ecg Image Management Brings Increased Productivity and Confidence Overcoming Barriers to Cath Lab Inventory Control Maximizing Reimbursement, Minimizing Penalties News & Views Calendar Reader Resources The Back Page

Cardiovascular Business - July/August 2008

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