NO MORE PAPER!

How Nassau Orthopedic Surgeons (Levittown, NY) is making the smooth transition from paper charts to EMR charts.

By John Bonini, Administrator, Nassau Orthopedic Surgeons

At Nassau Orthopedic Surgeons, Carl B. Weiss, MD reviews the paperless EMR system Medcomp with the group’s administrator, John Bonini (standing).

As early as 1989 our medical group understood the importance of electronic medical records. We had six physicians at the time, handling over 100 patient visits a day and we had the same charting problems all busy offices deal with daily. Charts were often misfiled, couldn't be found when needed, or were needed by multiple people at one time for administrative and medical purposes. Our practice management vendor, Medcomp, wrote a program that put the chart notes typed by our transcriptionist directly onto the patient's computer chart.

Countless times per day, in response to insurance company or referring physician questions and in handling patient calls, this was a blessing. If we needed access to chart notes, and couldn't find the physical chart, they were only a click away. But there were limits to what part of a patient's record we could access without the chart. We couldn't access past medical history data, records that had come in from other physician offices or testing facilities, or notes that had been handwritten into the chart.

At the end of 1999 we decided to implement a complete EMR system so we could have every patient's full chart on a computer screen in seconds. The decision was fueled by our positive experience using limited EMR, a desire to become more efficient, and a need to reduce the labor costs of transcription, pulling and filing of charts, and looking for misplaced charts.

Our exploration of EMR systems brought us to the realization that many of the systems on the market were inflexible and frustrating to physicians currently using them. We had been told by physicians during site visits that if you had problems with the templates you purchased with the EMR systems you were in trouble because they were hard to change.

Highly flexible system accommodates many physicians’ diverse personal working styles

The decision to purchase the Medcomp EMR System was due to the flexibility of the system and the strength of the Template Builder and Document Builder. The Medcomp product enables you to purchase templates and documents to create your medical records, however, you can also easily customize or create your own templates through the Template Builder and control the text that prints on your chart notes through the Document Builder.

Any administrator of a large medical group knows that many physicians = many personalities and points of view. If all the physicians had been locked into using one fixed set of templates, an EMR system would have been hard to implement since each physician performs exams and creates chart notes differently. If you are able to provide a variety of templates that can accommodate different ways each physician is comfortable with, you give the physician more control and gain more cooperation.

In our office alone we have physicians who only want to click a few buttons to get informative chart notes, other physicians who want to be able to go into much more detail by voicing text into parts of the templates, and other physicians who want to dictate their entire chart note directly in the EMR system. We have been able to meet the needs of all our physicians because of the flexibility of the system.

Productivity and customer service quality increase while labor costs decrease

Six months after the first physician started using the system we had eliminated all transcription costs from our practice. Also we had eliminated the need for employees to pull and file charts. To our surprise, we reduced the staff at our front reception desk because they were able to use their time more productively. No time is wasted searching for charts. These cost reductions annually are greater than the cost of the system.

Mail is handled more efficiently by scanning it and routing it to physicians for review. All chart notes, test results, correspondence, phone calls and histories can be viewed instantly. There is no need for paper. With fewer staff members we are still able to provide better customer service. Because we can now view full patient charts in seconds, we are now more organized and more efficient at responding to patient calls and inquiries and informing patients of test results.

We also provide better service to the physicians referring to our office. Once we create a chart note in the EMR system, with a click of a button we immediately fax that note to the referring physician. The PCPs have the chart note moments after the patient was seen.

We are so confident that EMR is the future that we are now in the process of implementing and interfacing a digital x-ray system with Medcomp. Once that is complete we will truly have achieved our goal to maintain the entire patient record on computer.

For more information contact
Medcomp Systems Ltd.
991 Main Street, Suite 201, Holbrook, NY 11741
631-467-5401 • 212-627-8557
www.medcompsystems.com
inq@medcompsystems.com