MEDITECH Monthly Customer Newsletter

Physician Advisory Committee Previews Ambulatory Care Strategy, ER Software and More

The summer meeting of MEDITECH' s Physicians Advisory Committee took place in late July at our Westwood facility. Eleven physician committee members met to hear updates of and to discuss our clinical information systems strategy and products. As an integral part of MEDITECH's Physicians Informatics Program, the committee discussed the progress of our Physicians Order Entry product, viewed Voice Recognition capabilities and was given a preview of MEDITECH's Ambulatory Care strategy and Emergency Department Management product.

Physicians Order Entry
The challenge presented to the committee members was how to integrate decision support most effectively in Physicians Order Entry. All agreed that a good starting point would be for MEDITECH to incorporate rules that cover the common

Stephanie Petersen Carlson and Ken Carlson of LSS Data Systems chat with Hoda Sayed-Friel, MEDITECH's Director of Development.

problems presented during clinical management. It was also recognized that institutions have unique styles of providing care and that care practice can change quickly. Thus, it would be helpful to have the ability to create and customize the Rules-Based or logic algorithms, which govern their decision support routines. A major concern voiced by both MEDITECH and the committee was reducing the number of messages and/or reminders from rules routines that slow down procedures and are considered by many to be "noise" that is actually ignored by physicians.

Clinical Reporting
Another area of interest, clinical reporting, was kicked-off by Dr. Mark Fischer, chief of Medicine at Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles, WA. He described their creation of a "Provider Inpatient Progress Note" form developed to bring key pieces of patient data into one report. Jen Sagerian, a MEDITECH physician consultant, followed Mark with an update to her Clinical Report Library project. The library, available now in the Physician Web Site, is an effort to build physicians' awareness of the reporting capabilities we offer and to facilitate the sharing of report ideas, particularly as physicians look for ways to combine pertinent and time-sensitive patient data on one report. A general discussion followed about the contents of a Rounds Report.

Hoda Sayed-Friel, MEDITECH's director of Development, next presented the preliminary version of a new capability called Specialty Panels. These panels provide a review of patient data relative to specific ailments or physiological processes. For example, while treating a diabetes patient, a physician could call up that patient's endocrine panel or call up a dehydration panel to monitor volume status. The panels integrate pertinent information in a format designed to correlate the key data. The panels eliminate key strokes and gather data by specialty all in one report at the point-of-care and facilitates physicians' clinical thinking. Committee members offered valuable comments and suggestions for Hoda to consider as she continues development.

Voice Recognition
Hoda again took the spotlight when she presented a status report on the use of speech recognition in patient documentation. The committee was able to see how a physician could use the voice recognition capabilities for their progress notes. The committee was particularly pleased with this progress because they were involved with the initial exploration of the capability nine months earlier.

Ambulatory Care Solution
Our Ambulatory Care solution kicked off the afternoon discussions. Karen Farrell, a MEDITECH physician consultant, introduced MEDITECH's vision of how ambulatory care software should help improve care delivery across an enterprise. Dr. Peter Sanderson, chief medical officer of St. Michael's Hospital in Stevens Point, WI, followed Karen with a presentation about his institution's efforts to automate care within the ambulatory setting, focusing on key longitudinal data to support clinical decisions or treatment-specific clinics.

Ken Carlson then provided committee members a status report of the MEDITECH and LSS Ambulatory Care strategy. Ken is president of LSS Data Systems, a long-time MEDITECH business partner and developer and vendor of physicians practice management software. MEDITECH and LSS have recently joined resources to develop an Ambulatory Care solution, with Ken leading the effort. Ken presented a detailed summary of his Electronic Ambulatory Record, which from one screen allows a physician to view a detailed profile of patient and his/her current medical problems and related information. He also demonstrated the capability to capture patient data from forms over the Internet and turn these into a narrative for patient care.

Hoda again took the stage as she presented preliminary plans for a Summary List capability. The Summary List would be derived from the encounter information for each visit. It would serve to provide a high-level view of the patient to physicians who want a quick summary. Hoda was able to collect a lot of valuable feedback from committee members as she continues her development of the Summary List.

Emergency Department Product
The final topic of the day was a look at MEDITECH's new Emergency Department Management (EDM) product. Andrew Watt, a programmer for Michelle O'Connor's MAGIC Development group, provided a detailed walkthrough of the product's design to date. Speed and efficiency were major considerations in its design, in order to accommodate the fast-paced care environment of Emergency Departments. The product is targeted for beta testing early next year and general release next summer.

All in all, the committee members and MEDITECH officers expressed appreciation for how much the relationship between the two groups has progressed. Physicians are seeing the results of their involvement as they view products and functionality that were discussed only in theory at previous meetings. MEDITECH officers appreciate the contributions, but also the physicians' partner-like approach as they learn the challenges we face in developing products for tens of thousands of physician users. Additionally, MEDITECH learns the needs and constraints of physicians having information critical for patient care.