Medical Scribes Improve Revenue Cycle, Patient Satisfaction
October 1, 2013 | Industry News Release
Source: Healthcare IT NewsAsk any doctor what it’s like learning how to chart on the electronic medical record (EMR), and you’ll likely get a response similar to that of Dr. Chris Johnson.
“The transition to any electronic medical record is extremely painful,” says Dr. Johnson, Medical Director at Community Memorial Hospital (CMH) in Ventura, CA.Healthcare providers nationwide are facing a federal mandate that requires all patient records to be electronic based by 2014. For doctors accustomed to paper charting, it’s a move that not only reduces productivity but could potentially cost millions in lost revenue.
Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine cited a $13.4 million loss over 6 months after implementing their EMR system. The reason: Reduced charge capture due in part to the lack of training clinicians received on capturing billable codes in the EMR.
Dr. Johnson said hiring trained EMR specialists called “scribes” helped offset the initial costs by allowing doctors to focus on patient care rather than documentation.
Medical scribes are non-clinicians whose sole focus is capturing data during the patient examination. They are typically pre-health students who use the position as a way to gain experience before applying to medical school. CMH pays about $20 per hour for a scribe vendor but Dr. Johnson says the return on investment has been surprisingly high.
“Scribes have made the transition to the EMR practically seamless,” says Dr.Johnson, who uses Emergency Medicine Scribe Systems (EMSS), a scribe vendor based out of Los Angeles. “The scribe program provided by EMSS has helped us increase our patients per hour over the past two years by about 12.5 percent. Our charges per hour have gone up about 15 to 20 percent, and we haven’t had to increase physician hours.”
Dr. Kevin Parkes, Medical Director at San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland, CA said their quality of charting went down after switching to the EMR.
“One of our biggest problems was losing the detail of the hospital course,” said Dr. Parkes, who started using EMSS scribes in 2007. “Since we got the scribes, the detail and the content of the hospital course is far better than it was, and that’s very important in terms of patient care.”Dr. Parkes also said they covered the cost of the scribe program almost immediately since providers were able to see 1 to 2 more patients per hour.
Currently, about 500 hospitals use scribes and most of them are in the Emergency Department. But the number of hospitalists and outpatient clinics using scribes is growing.Peg Loos, COO and Chief Compliance Officer at District Medical Group, says they brought EMSS scribes to their Phoenix children’s clinic for a smoother transition to the EMR.
“We wanted to have scribes in place to relieve some of the anxiety that surrounds implementing the EMR,” says Loos. “I think it helped tremendously reduce the stress level and increase overall efficiency and patient satisfaction. Many of our physicians love having scribes and said they wish they could have them in their other offices too.”
EMSS President Garret Erskine says scribes are quickly becoming a solution for doctors who otherwise face learning a new charting system. EMSS trains scribes to optimize the EMR resulting in improved charge capture for the provider, according to Erskine.
“Instead of having a physician who makes $150 or more per hour focus on clerical work, we can offer scribes to chart for a fraction of the cost,” he says. “This frees up the doctor to focus on the patient, which ultimately improves productivity and patient satisfaction levels. Meanwhile, the scribe is capturing all the data for accurate reimbursement.”
Tag: EHR
Doctors are medical, not clerical
A Busy Doctor’s Right Hand, Ever Ready to Type
Dr. Marian Bednar, an emergency room physician in Dallas, left, with Amanda Nieto, 27, her scribe and constant shadow.MARK GRAHAM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESBy KATIE HAFNERJanuary 12, 2014
DALLAS — Amid the controlled chaos that defines an average afternoon in an urban emergency department, Dr. Marian Bednar, an emergency room physician at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, entered the exam room of an older woman who had fallen while walking her dog. Like any doctor, she asked questions, conducted an exam and gave a diagnosis — in this case, a fractured hand — while also doing something many physicians in today’s computerized world are no longer free to do: She gave the patient her full attention.
Standing a few feet away, tapping quickly and quietly at a laptop computer cradled in the crook of her left arm, was Amanda Nieto, 27, Dr. Bednar’s scribe and constant shadow. While Ms. Nieto updated the patient’s electronic chart, Dr. Bednar spoke to the woman, losing eye contact only to focus on the injured hand.
“With a scribe, I can think medically instead of clerically,” said Dr. Bednar, 40.
Without much fanfare or planning, scribes have entered the scene in hundreds of clinics and emergency rooms. Physicians who use them say they feel liberated from the constant note-taking that modern electronic health records systems demand. Indeed, many of those doctors say that scribes have helped restore joy in the practice of medicine, which has been transformed — for good and for bad — by digital record-keeping.
“Having the scribe has been life-changing,” said Dr. Jennifer Sewing, a family medicine practitioner in St. Louis, who used to spend late nights at her computer finishing electronic patient charts. Now, she can relax with her family or go to bed instead.
Dr. Michael Murphy, the chief executive of ScribeAmerica, a company based in Aventura, Fla., that supplies scribes to hospitals and medical practices, estimates that there are nearly 10,000 scribes working in hospitals and medical practices around the country, with demand rising quickly. At his company alone, the number of scribes deployed to clinics and emergency departments has risen to 3,500 from 1,000 in the past three years. Many of them are people like Ms. Nieto, who works for PhysAssist, a company based in Fort Worth. Training typically takes between 15 and 21 days, and is done by the companies themselves. She plans to enter a master’s program to become a physician assistant.
For decades, physicians pinned their hopes on computers to help them manage the overwhelming demands of office visits. Instead, electronic health records have become a disease in need of a cure, as physicians do their best to diagnose and treat patients while continuously feeding the data-hungry computer. Five years ago, only 10 percent of hospitals and doctors’ offices used electronic health records. But now the adoption rate is nearly 70 percent, thanks to tens of billions of dollars of federal incentive payments. And on the heels of electronic records has come the growing popularity of scribes.
A study published jointly in October by the American Medical Association and RAND Corporation found that electronic health records were a major contributor to physician dissatisfaction, as doctors negotiate a cranky truce between talking to and examining the patient, and the ceaseless demands of the computer. And arecent article in the journal Health Affairs concluded that two-thirds of a primary care physician’s day was spent on clerical work that could be done by someone else; among the recommended solutions was the hiring of scribes.
“Making physicians into secretaries is not a winning proposition,” said Dr. Christine Sinsky, a primary care physician at Medical Associates Clinic and Health Plans, in Dubuque, Iowa, who also researches physician dissatisfaction.
Dr. Sinsky, who was an author of the article in Health Affairs, has visited more than 50 primary care practices over the past five years, in the course of studying ways to stem high rates of physician burnout. She has found that physicians who use scribes are more satisfied with their work and choice of careers.
The inconsistency isn’t lost on health care experts. In most industries, automation leads to increased efficiency, even employee layoffs. In health care, it seems, the computer has created the need for an extra human in the exam room.
The scribes, Dr. Sinsky said, offer “a triple win.”
“The patients get undivided attention from the physicians,” she said. “The scribes are continuously learning while making an important contribution, and the physician gets the satisfaction of doing the work they went into medicine for in the first place.”
Not everyone is sold. Some physicians are concerned about the privacy implications of introducing a third person to the examining room. According to one study of scribes in clinical settings, roughly 10 percent of patients were uncomfortable with having the scribe present.
The cost of hiring a scribe, borne largely by the physicians themselves, is also a concern. Companies typically charge $20 to $25 per hour for scribes, who in turn are paid $8 to $16 per hour. Yet physicians who use scribes say they come out even, or ahead, financially, as they can see up to four extra patients a day.
Medical transcriptionists are not new. Since the 1960s, physicians have dictated their notes into a tape recorder and given them to transcriptionists to convert into written reports, interpreting medical terminology and abbreviations as they worked. The notes appeared on paper charts hours, sometimes even days, later. Scribes simply speed up the process, entering data as it is gathered so that records can be viewed and assessed instantly. Dr. David Reuben, a geriatrician at the University of California, Los Angeles, uses “physician partners,” who do the work of scribes, with expanded responsibilities such as scheduling appointments, filling out test requisitions and completing the checkout process. Preliminary results from a six-month study Dr. Reuben conducted of geriatricians and general internists suggest that the physicians saved an average of three minutes per visit by using the scribes. Just as important, the physician partners or scribes dramatically reduced the amount of work for the doctor to do at the end of the day. And a vast majority of patients said they thought the assistants helped the visit run smoothly.
Dr. Reuben said that working with physician partners had transformed his work. “Do it once, and you’re hooked,” he said.
Dr. Sewing, 42, feels the same way. It used to be that every night, following a long day at work, after seeing to dinner, homework and baths for her two children, she would return to the computer for several hours to finish up electronic patient charts. Chronically exhausted and feeling enslaved to the computer, she began to wonder why she had entered medicine in the first place.
But since she started working with scribes two years ago, Dr. Sewing has found that she can focus on patients instead of the machine. In her practice of five physicians, she and another doctor use scribes full-time, with a third now using a scribe one day a week. As for the two holdouts, she said, “I wonder how long that’s going to last.”
Next-Generation EHR | Comprehensive Cloud Solutions
Clinical documentation has a direct impact on Revenue Cycle Management. As ICD-10 gets closer and closer, clinics, hospitals and physician offices will need to carefully examine their documentation. The long-term financial stability can be devastating if not done correctly. Physicians, coders and healthcare document specialist will need to combine efforts, but most importantly, have the right EHR in place. Comprehensive Cloud, Next-Generation, EHR is imperative moving forward! This year, 2013, has been quoted as being the “year to change EHR systems.” However, the predictions for 2014 do not look any better as dissatisfaction is on the rise for physicians and administrators. With today’s change in health care, it is more important than ever to have an EHR that meets your needs.
If your EHR is not meeting your needs, you are not alone. According to KLAS, 50% of ambulatory practices are looking to switch EHR systems.* Top reasons to make the change include an inability to achieve Meaningful Use, a lack of support, and unfulfilled promises from the vendor.
“The American Journal of Managed Care has now weighed in on the impact of electronic health records and health IT with a special issue devoted to research on the subject. The issue is highlighted by an introduction by guest editor and former National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, M.D., now a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute. Mostashari notes that this latest round of health and payment reform is different because of the new tools and data that EHRs and other health IT offer.” Read More
Medical Document Services of Kansas, LLC (MDS) is a Wichita, Kansas healthcare document service specializing in Medical Transcription, Revenue Cycle Management, AzaleaHealth EHR, and REAL-TIME solutions. We provide efficient, accurate, affordable quality services for hospitals, clinics, and facilities of all sizes. Call 866-777-7264 today, or visit our website for more information.
Medical Identity Theft
Fraudulent Healthcare is on the rise! Make sure your information is safely guarded; ask your providers what precautions they take with your information. Where are your medical records stored?
Amazingly, and shockingly, the Federal Trade Commission estimates medical identity theft happening to as many as 9 million people every year. There are many victims to this growing theft and you or someone you love could be next. Statistics show a 20 percent increase in 2012 of said medical identity theft. This is estimated to have cost consumers $12 billion dollars. In fact, according to a recent survey by the Ponemon Institute, there were 1.84 million victims in 2012 to this personally invasive crime.
Maybe you have wondered why the hospital or physician’s office needs so much personal information. Criminals are trying to steal your identity to secure their own healthcare, and experts predict that it is only going to get worse because of the rising cost associated with healthcare.
Until the federal healthcare site is secure, it is recommended to phone your request in directly so you are not at risk for medical identity theft.
Be aware of scammers who will use your personal identification and information to seek drugs! They will most certainly try to gain this information to scam the pharmacies and acquire pharmaceuticals, in addition to office visits and even surgeries.
”Examine your insurer’s explanation of benefits, received after you pay for medical services. The document can reveal red flags of medical-identity theft, such as types of procedures and exams for which you are billed but that you did not receive.
Do not share your personal identification with family members or someone you know so they can obtain treatment, health-care products, or pharmaceuticals.” Read more…
Medical Document Services of Kansas, LLC (MDS) is a Wichita, Kansas healthcare document service specializing in Medical Transcription, Revenue Cycle Management, EHR technology, and REAL-TIME solutions. We provide efficient, accurate, affordable quality services for hospitals, clinics, and facilities of all sizes. Call 866-777-7264 today, or visit our website for more information.
ICD-10 requires greater specificity of documentation in the health record and an efficient revenue cycle management system.
“For over 22 years MDS has delivered a variety of medical document services, including medical transcription, editing, EHR technologies, and education programs throughout the Midwest. “The merging of advanced technology has created new demands on physicians. We offer REAL-TIME solutions while helping to improve cash flow, margins and efficiency,” says Donella Aubuchon, CEO of MDS.
MDS chose to partner with Azalea Health to offer a full range of healthcare billing services and EHR solutions to its clients. Aubuchon explains, ” This significantly impacts the administrative and financial side of a practice.” Azalea’s cloud-based software suite comes with a quality support team and a fully-integrated billing and claims management module which boasts an increase in billing accuracy and aids practices in earning up to 15% more in reimbursements. In addition to accuracy, Azalea provides a secure portal for users to both record and transmit sensitive data.”
http://www.prweb.com/releases/MDSofKansas/AzaleaHealth/prweb11319500.htm
Medical Document Services of Kansas, LLC (MDS) is a Wichita, Kansas healthcare document service specializing in Medical Transcription, Revenue Cycle Management, EHR technology, and REAL-TIME solutions. We provide efficient, accurate, affordable quality services for hospitals, clinics, and facilities of all sizes. Call 866-777-7264 today, or visit our website for more information.
MDS is excited to be a game-changer in the RCM industry!
The time is right! Let us help reduce the stress incurred by claims denials and lost profits. We focus on your practice’s non-medical, business aspects giving you time to focus on practicing medicine. EHR and RCM should work together and that is why we are offering the most competitive billing services in the industry! Cash-flow is the lifeline of your practice and there is no reason to pay upwards of 12% on receivables. This is damaging to your bottom line.
The burden cost of on-site billing can be more than costly; it can be quite straining to the company creating weighted overhead. Because time, money and resources are valuable assets, MDS’ RCM Services provide the right solution. We have certified, expert billing and coding staff to handle all operations of a patient encounter, securely and accurately. Our software dashboard(s) provide a process and visibility in real time, at the point of care.
Our staff and software support team have a combined 20+ years in billing service analysis, RCM, and business operations and review. Our experience in healthcare documentation with state-specific billing rules and regulations set us apart from others in the industry. We KNOW our business.
Medical Document Services of Kansas, LLC (MDS) is a Wichita, Kansas healthcare document service specializing in Medical Transcription, Revenue Cycle Management, EHR technology, and REAL-TIME solutions. We provide efficient, accurate, affordable quality services for hospitals, clinics, and facilities of all sizes. Call 866-777-7264 today, or visit our website for more information.
Clinical Documentation Trends – Must READ
I know you will want to read this over carefully. There are some VERY interesting points made in this study by the Health Business Group on healthcare documentation trends for the next several years. Please take time and read, as it is well worth it … (my medical transcription and healthcare documentation friends)!
Clinical_Documentation_Trends_2013_2016
“CLINICAL DOCUMENTATION TODAY
• Medical transcription is the most common form of documentation in the acute care market and is also utilized, though to a lesser extent, in the ambulatory space.
• About half of medical transcription is performed by provider organizations using their own staff; half is outsourced to Medical Transcription Service Organizations (MTSOs).
• Acute care providers frequently use both in-house and outsourced resources; ambulatory practices tend to use one or the other but not both.
• Most provider organizations type their transcription directly from audio files.
• A substantial portion of documentation is done using the electronic health record (EHR), especially in the ambulatory market.
• Despite increasing EHR penetration, health care providers express some uncertainty about the ability of EHRs to meet clinical documentation needs and to tell the complete patient story.
• A significant share of clinical documentation is still handwritten.
CLINICAL DOCUMENTATION IN 2016
• The clinical documentation market will undergo substantial change between 2013 and 2016.
• Documentation volume will continue to grow at approximately 2 to 3 percent per year.
• The use of EHRs for documentation will increase, especially in ambulatory settings.
• The use of front-end speech recognition to enter data into EHRs will grow faster than the use of keyboard and mouse.
• Integrated delivery networks (IDNs) will increasingly determine the method of clinical documentation for affiliated practices.
• Documentation on paper will vanish almost completely.
• Transcription will remain an important documentation method, but more of the market will be outsourced.
• There will be increasing use of back-end technology among those who continue to perform transcription in-house.
• New technologies such as Clinical Language Understanding (CLU) will enter the mainstream.
• The introduction of ICD-10 may increase the need for high-quality clinical documentation and Computer-Assisted Coding.”
Medical Document Services of Kansas, LLC (MDS) is a Wichita, Kansas healthcare document service specializing in Medical Transcription, Revenue Cycle Management, EHR technology, and REAL-TIME solutions. We provide efficient, accurate, affordable quality services for hospitals, clinics, and facilities of all sizes. Call 866-777-7264 today, or visit our website for more information.
Are Medical Scribes Worth the Investment?
“Are scribes really worth it? It’s a question that has likely come up for many a hospital administrator. Now a study gauging the cost/benefit ratio of medical scribes has been completed. The landmark project, which actually was titled “Are Scribes Worth It?,” concluded that scribe programs can greatly assist higher acuity emergency departments that are struggling with long patient stays, a high percent of patients leaving without treatment and challenging electronic medical record systems. Some medical scribe programs, according to the study, actually more than pay for themselves.
The study was produced by Tanveer Gaibi, MD, medical director for Northwest Hospital in Randallstown, Md., Michael Hochberg, MD, medical director for Saint Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J., Daria Starosta, MD, EmCare director of practice improvement, and Mark Switaj, MBA, an EmCare client administrator.
“We wanted to determine whether medical scribes are truly worth the investment,” says Dr. Starosta. “We focused on determining improvements in overall productivity and quality in the emergency departments and the financial return on investment of medical scribes.” read more ….
Continue reading “Are Medical Scribes Worth the Investment?”
MDS Crosses State Lines to Partner with Azalea Health
Wichita, KS (September 19, 2013) – Wichita-based medical document services company, MDS of Kansas (MDS) joins forces with Azalea Health (Azalea) to provide clients with a billing service and complete cloud-based electronic health records (EHR) solution, Azalea EHR.
For over 22 years MDS has delivered a variety of medical document services, including transcription, editing, EHR integration, and education programs throughout the Midwest. “The merging of advanced technology with continued emphasis on efficient and accurate healthcare documentation has created new demands on physicians. We offer REAL-TIME solutions while helping to improve cash flow, margins and efficiency.” says Donella Aubuchon, CEO of MDS.
MDS chose to partner with Azalea Health to offer a full range of healthcare billing services and EHR solutions to its clients. Aubuchon explains, “The specificity of documentation in the health record significantly impacts the administrative and financial side of a practice.” Azalea’s cloud-based software suite comes with a quality support team and a fully-integrated billing and claims management module which boasts an increase in billing accuracy and aids practices in earning 15% more in reimbursements. In addition to accuracy, Azalea provides a secure portal for users to both record and transmit sensitive data.
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About MDS of Kansas:
MDS of Kansas, L.L.C. is a small business located at 205 S. Hillside and offers Medical Transcription services, education programs for Medical Transcription and Medical Scribes, as well as Medical Billing & Coding services. For more information, visit www.MDSofKansas.com or call (866) 777-7264.
About Azalea Health
Azalea Health (Azalea) is a leading provider of cloud-based healthcare solutions and services. Azalea provides Electronic Health Records (EHR), Practice Management Systems (PMS), Electronic Prescribing (eRx), Laboratory Ordering and Resulting, Patient Health Records Portal, Telemedicine and Health Information Exchanges (HIE), as well as Revenue Cycle Management Services (RCM), and Precertification Services. For more information, visit www.AzaleaHealth.com or call (877) 777-7686.
Medical Document Services of Kansas, LLC (MDS) is a Wichita, Kansas healthcare document service specializing in Medical Transcription, Revenue Cycle Management, EHR technology, Medical Scribe education and REAL-TIME solutions. We provide efficient, accurate, affordable quality services for hospitals, clinics, and facilities of all sizes. Call 866-777-7264 today, or visit our website for more information.
Copy & Paste is not okay? Say what???
“Seventy-four to 90 percent of physicians use the copy/paste function in their EHRs, and between 20 to 78 percent of physician notes are copied text, according to a September AHIMA report.”
We have spent a lot of time educating our students and MTs about the deadliness of the copy/paste function in medical transcription. There can be serious errors made and the veteran healthcare documentation specialist has learned this over the last decade or two. However, it is apparently common to see this going on in the EHR. Take a look …
EHR copy and paste? Better think twice
Healthcare IT News
Who would have thought that something so simple as copy and paste could have such serious consequences? Speaking at the MGMA annual conference in San Diego, Diana Warner, director at AHIMA, confirmed the seriousness of inappropriately using copy and paste functions in electronic health records. And the government agrees — it’s no laughing matter.
Do EHR’s have a negative impact on doctor-patient encounters?
What do you think about the doctor-patient relationship? Tell us about your last patient visit with your physician. How long was the visit? Were all of your issues addressed? Did you have your doctor’s complete attention? Was he/she frustrated?
“MedScape’s “EHR Report 2012” survey (access requires free MedScape registration) of over 21,000 physicians found that 30% of respondents reported EHRs had a negative impact on the doctor-patient relationship. Of those, 80% said it was due to less eye contact with patients and 75% said there was less conversational time. One physician cited said, “I feel like I’m treating the computer and not the patient. There’s more focus on documentation than on the patient during the patient visit.”
Increased dissatisfaction and decreased productivity.
A March 2013 survey conducted by the American College of Physicians and AmericanEHR Partners found that physicians who were very satisfied with their EHR dropped by 6% while those reporting to be “very dissatisfied” increased by 10%. A total of 34% of physicians now report being “very dissatisfied” with the EHRs, up from 19% in 2010. Other key points include:
* The ACP’s summary noted that “survey responses also indicated that it is becoming more difficult to return to pre-EHR implementation productivity. In 2012, 32% of the responders had not returned to normal productivity compared with 20% in 2010.”
* Alan Brookstone, MD, co-founder of AmericanEHR Partners, said that “basic functions, such as documentation, continue to be an issue for many physicians.”
Why This is Important”
“For medical transcription service organizations, these studies reinforce why hundreds of thousands of healthcare providers continue to prefer dictation and transcription as their primary method of generating their clinical documentation. Our responsibility as healthcare professionals is to proactively inform our clients that dictation and transcription have important advantages over EHR-based templating – especially in relation to physician productivity and a physician’s ability to connect with his or her patients.”
Why are doctors so upset? Are the EMR vendors just saying whatever they need to say?
Another Study Highlights Physician EMR Unhappiness
The evidence keeps coming in, over and over, like waves pounding on a beach. Many physicians aren’t happy with their EMRs, and the number of discontented doctors seems to be growing — with an undetermined but sizable number seeming likely to switch this year.
This time the evidence comes courtesy of the American College of Physicians and EMR selection site AmericanEHR Partners. A new study by the pair reports that physician satisfaction with EMRs dropped 12 percentage points between 2010 and 2012, and that the number who are “very dissatisfied” grew by 10 percentage points, FierceEMR reports.
These numbers, which were drawn from 4,279 responses to multiple surveys between March 2010 and December 2012, are a particularly strong reflection of the mood among smaller practices. Seventy-one percent of doctors/practices responding to the survey were in practices with 10 physicians or fewer, the ACP said.
These physicians seem downright upset with their current vendors. In fact, 39 percent of clinicians said they wouldn’t recommend their current EMR to a colleague, up sharply from the 24 percent who said the same in 2010.
According to the ACP, physicians feel their EMR is failing them in several key areas:
* Improving care: Doctors who were “very satisfied” with their EMR’s ability to improve care fell by 6 percent from 2010, while the “very dissatisfied” climbed 10 percent, with surgical specialists the least satisfied specialty.
* Decreasing workload: ACP found that 34 percent of users were “very dissatisfied” with their ability to decrease workload, up from just 19 percent in 2010.
* Return to pre-EMR productivity: The number of respondents who had not returned normal productivity after their EMR install was 32 percent in 2012, up from 20 percent in 2010.
* Ease of use: Dissatisfaction with EMR ease of use climbed to 37 percent in 2012, up from 23 percent in 2012, while satisfaction dropped from 61 to 48 percent.
That we’re seeing something of an EMR backlash seems obvious here. The question is, will unhappy physicians switch futilely and end up just as unhappy, or are they going to actually improve their experience?
“Mobile is changing everything”
DoctorBase Passes 3 Million Patients On Its Mobile Messaging Platform
DoctorBase.com, a service allowing physicians to offer their patients secure, medically oriented smartphone access, has announced that they have surpassed three million patients and more than 9,000 healthcare providers on its platform. They also announced a free version of their product will be available to licensed providers in the U.S. starting today.
Created by former developers from Five9 and LiveJournal, working with a team of primary care doctors and specialists ranging from OB/GYN to Oncology, San Francisco-based DoctorBase believes that mHealth-as-a-Service is the solution to expensive, cumbersome patient portals that have failed to gain traction with either providers or patients.
“Mobile is changing everything,” said John Sung Kim, CEO of DoctorBase.com. “Now that health systems are starting to wake up to the benefits of cloud computing and the Internet, they’re so late to the party that it’s no longer about that paradigm – patients across all demographics now use smartphones as their primary connectivity device. That’s leaving both doctors and patients communicating with each other in non-HIPAA compliant, unsecured ways such as email and text for the simple sake of convenience.”
“Transcription versus EMR/EHR” – The Perfect Solution
By Andy Braverman, President of Apptec Corporation… a developer of next generation speech processing products.
“The way to do it right, is for the doctor to dictate just as they have for decades.
Dictation is the most efficient use of the doctor’s time. The EMR/EHR should only be in front of the
doctor to review a patient’s records… not to input data into it. For data input into the EMR/EHR, that
should be a “back office” task performed by the transcriptionist.” READ MORE