Clinical Practice Management Plan Seeing Results
Clinical Practice Management Plan (CPMP), a large academic group practice based in New York, said that in October 2001, its Nephrology and Endocrinology Division of the Department of Medicine saw an impressive 406 percent ROI from the deployment of the mobile charge capture and digital dictation solution from MDeverywhere, a provider of mobile solutions for the healthcare sector. ROI was gained from recouped lost charges, timely claim submission and reduced rework costs, CPMP said.

In the expectation of similar results, CPMP signed a five-year agreement with MDeverywhere for an enterprise-wide deployment of the mobile solution.

CPMP expects "to garner similar results as the additional departments are brought on-line and additional functionalities like digital dictation are added," explained Ellen Dank Cohen, executive director of CPMP.

"The MDeverywhere service is easy to use and provides day-to-day added value for our physicians. I believe the MDeverywhere service could provide tangible benefits for all academic and large practices similar to our faculty practice plan," she added.

Electronic Medical Record — Next Generation Application
The partnership of A.D.A.M., Inc., a publisher of interactive health and medical information, and Greenway Medical Technologies, a provider of integrated software solutions for doctors, is promising physicians a new means of delivering vital patient information with the first image-based electronic medial record, or EMR, for handheld tablet computers.

A.D.A.M. said it will license more than 400 images to Greenway’s PrimeSuite EMR application, that will enable physicians using a handheld tablet computer to generate a graphic image on a medical record, said Tee Green, president and COO of Greenway.

"The availability of a graphic image on a medial record, covering everything inside and outside the human body, not only prevents the clinical encounter from being disrupted by the presence of an EMR, but assists the physician to determine a diagnosis," Green said.

With the computer’s stylus, a physician can simply click on a detailed image of a part of the anatomy, such as the head or torso, and then zoom in on the image for greater detail. The physician can then identify the symptoms and determine a diagnosis using the application’s flowchart methodology. The entire process is now documented; no further transcription or documentation is required.