According to Dr. Peter Barker, Family Doctors Treatment and Trauma Center in Swampscott, Massachusetts was “drowning in paper”. After a building fire years ago nearly destroyed the practice’s paper medical records, Dr. Barker set about looking for an EMR (Electronic Medical Records) solution that would not only make medical records keeping simpler, but also preserve the practice’s data in the event of disaster.

The EMR system needed to solve a number of problems for the Family Doctors practice. The most important was that of record access, as finding the right paper record and getting it to the right physician was a significant hassle. Introducing electronic prescription fulfillment was another important requirement. As well, there was a daily need to organize, retrieve and communicate essential patient information with third parties such as hospitals and specialists. Every day, Family Doctors had to send or receive lab results, consultation notes, immunization forms and other such documentation. Finally, the system needed to be able to incorporate information from phone calls, doctor’s annotations, flags, appends and other non-standard sources.

After much research, Dr. Barker chose GE Healthcare’s Centricity EMR solution supported by  integrated fax communications with FAXCOM CV Plus from Biscom, Inc. and integrated document management with DocuTrak from Kryptiq. These products allow everyone at Family Doctors to instantly access, edit and update any patient’s record at any time. Notes are easily appended to any file with detailed information on who added the information and when. Prescriptions and other essential medical documents are easily faxed directly from within the EMR interface, and inbound documentation from third parties is now attached to all medical records. And now that everything is in electronic form, it is easily backed up for disaster recovery purposes.

As expected, time savings have been marked and efficiency has been vastly improved. The practice also has experienced an improvement in patient care. Patients respond positively to the presence of a computer in the examination room, and are happy to have prescriptions automatically faxed to their local pharmacy and to receive information such as medication summaries on the spot. Physicians and support staff are also pleased with the system, as shown by immediate improvements in employee job satisfaction and employee retention. Even minor EMR features bring praise from clinical staff. “Never underestimate the importance of bells and whistles,” noted Dr. Barker.

While Family Doctors experienced a fast and effective transition to the electronic medical record, Dr. Barker does have advice for other organizations planning the same move: “Do your planning first, and then jump in. Get your heads above water, and go with the flow as much as possible. Keep an eye out for staff who are having difficulties and be prepared to help them out.” Dr. Barker also cautions against letting the computer become the focus of the examination room. “It’s great to have instant access to patient records and educational information like patient handouts,” he said. “But don’t forget to maintain eye contact with the patient while discussing treatment!”

Dr. Peter M. Barker, MD

With over 25 years of medical experience, Dr. Barker has worked in both research and patient care capacities at a wide variety of healthcare organizations. Dr. Barker’s background includes physician roles in clinics and private practices, and has gained a detailed understanding of all aspects of healthcare delivery. A graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Dr. Barker currently serves as the Medical Director at the Family Doctors/Swampscott Treatment and Trauma Center in Swampscott, Massachusetts.

Biscom, Inc.

Biscom has over 20 years of experience providing document delivery solutions. Specializing in fax server and file transfer solutions, Biscom provides the software solutions that make electronic prescription fulfillment and secure delivery of Private Health Information simple and effective. Biscom’s solutions are fully integrated with solutions such as GE Centricity EMR, Siemen’s syngo, McKesson MedDirect, and Misys CPR, and they can also be seamlessly integrated into existing workflow applications. For more information please visit www.biscom.com or email sales@biscom.com.

GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform and treat disease, so their patients can live their lives to the fullest. For more information, please visit www.gehealthcare.com.