Transcript: Larry O'Toole, MEDITECH Business Relations Manager

The Evolution of Our Approach

As I first announced at the Physician/CIO Workshop in the fall of 2009, MEDITECH has made a really exciting change to our clinical content strategy. 

So what I want to do is take you back actually a decade ago, and about a decade ago, customers were starting to demand clinical content being embedded -- or at least integrated -- within the MEDITECH HCIS system. And at that point, what we did is we went off and we did an investigation in the marketplace to find who is actually doing it, and can we embed that content within MEDITECH, or at least integrate. And at that point, we noticed that there really just wasn't enough vendors who would concentrate in that area; and the ones who were, most of them were paper-based, and they really didn't have any ability to integrate that into the MEDITECH system at that time. 

So what we did was we got our Development team going with some clinicians to create our Patient Discharge Instructions and our Patient Education as our first endeavor within that area of clinical content. And over the years we've added to that if you've noticed, we've added order sets, and we've also ordered, I mean added things like TNM staging forms from the AJCC, so its something that we have been doing for sometime. 

But I'm here today to say that we've noticed a change in the marketplace, and that is these clinical content companies who have been concentrating in that area over the past decade, have done an excellent job and have great core competencies when it comes to creating clinical content. And now they have the ability to embed it within HCIS systems and also integrate it with HCIS systems. 

Going Forward with Our Strategy

So what we plan in doing going forward is working with the leaders in this area to incorporate, and even embed in some cases, the clinical content and at least integrate with them. So our first change that we're making starting this year, is we're going to be changing our strategy for Patient Discharge Instructions and our Patient Education. So what we've done is we've teamed up with some of the leaders in this area and going forward we're going to have some nice tight integration with these vendors. 

The Vendors We Chose

Well, we didn't take our investigation lightly when we were looking for vendors to work with for Patient Discharge Instructions and Patient Education. We wanted to make sure that they had a great reputation in the marketplace, that they had great customer service, that they had a culture that matched with ours, they were willing to integrate with MEDITECH and work with us very closely going forward, and also give special pricing for MEDITECH customers -- which is very exciting for our customer base. 

And what we've decided to do is for Patient Discharge Instructions to start working with Thomson Reuters Micromedex and also EBSCO Publishing. For Patient Education, we're going to be working with Patient Edu and also Thomson Reuters Micromedex. And we're very excited about this collaboration going forward, and I would suggest that you stay tuned to MEDITECH.com for more information. 

Benefits

Some of the main benefits that you're going to find by working with the vendors that we've chosen, is the fact that you have choices. So you can take a look at the vendors that we're working with in this particular area and you can decide for yourself which one fits best with your culture and with your system, how you've set it up. In fact, you might already have a relationship with one of these vendors and really be able to take advantage of some bundle pricing and get some lower cost out of it. 

In addition you're going to get the latest evidence-based medicine with a lot of power behind it. Therefore when you're handing off the patient discharge instructions or the patient education to the patients, you can be ensured that they'll be easy to read, easy to understand, and hopefully, that will be cutting down on your readmits for their diagnosis. 

What About ARRA?

Well, as I'm sure you're aware, the ARRA Meaningful Use guidelines have had patient discharge instructions and patient education as criteria since the beginning, and this solution will satisfy those.

Current Status

We're at an exciting place right now within the project. So we've completed most of the coding, we have a little bit of coding left, and the plan is that after the coding, we're going to have a beta site in the spring where we're going to test out the integration. The exciting thing about the integration, is that its going to work seamlessly, just like the Patient Discharge Instructions that we have now, so it looks and feels just like our product except you're going to have the content from the other vendor. After we have the beta site, we're going to then move to general delivery. And we're hoping that later in 2010, we're going to get to that general release stage. 

How Do Customers Begin?

So, where do we begin? We look at this as a very strategic process and project for you. It's part of the ARRA Meaningful Use guidelines as we said earlier, therefore I'd handle it as such. So therefore, you want to look at where does this actually fit within your strategic plan overall for everything that you're doing right now?

So I would urge you to pick up the phone and call your Sales contact and maybe your HCIS Coordinator as well, those who have been working with you with your strategic plan moving forward. That way, they can fit in and make sure you get everything, and all your ducks are in a row moving forward with what you're going to be doing with Patient Discharge Instructions and Patient Education. 

If you're an existing customer for either of those products, I would urge you to call your Sales Consultant right away, because what we have done, is we have set up an easy transition process for you to get from the MEDITECH-based content over to the new other vendor content moving forward. So we'll have that plan set out for you, I would urge you to talk to them, and please keep note that MEDITECH going forward is not going to be updating our content anymore, and since this is a strategic mission for your hospital, I would make sure that you make that contact to see what you're going to be doing, going forward. 

And in general, you know, like I said, please pick up the phone and call your Sales Consultant. Also feel free to call me or anyone on my team, if there is anything we can do for you, we will sure be here for you. And once again, stay in contact with your website, MEDITECH.com, for more information going forward.