System Evaluation Paper for UOP
Content
1
System Evaluation Paper
Michael Vance
CIS/207
6/30/2014
2
System Evaluation Paper
My system evaluation paper will be on electronic medical records systems. I have been in
the field for about six years now working with two different systems in that time. The first
system being InteGreat EHR a MED3OOO company, now I work at the Robert C. Byrd Clinic
using Vitera a Greenway company. One of the earliest electronic medical systems was a system
named Health Evaluation through Logical Programming or HELP. This system was developed in
the in the 1960’s (LDS Hospital, 1998). Electronic medical records are nothing new to the
technology field and have been around since the 1960’s. They became more main stream in 2010
when Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or commonly
referred to as ObamaCare. This required medical facilities to meet certain reporting criteria
named Meaningful Use or they received a cut in Medicaid and Medicare payments. And so
began the spike in EHR and EMR development and sells to companies.
Most medical record systems are sold as both a practice management and clinical storage
system. But the largest bonus of each system is the organizational capabilities that can benefit
medical facilities. Having the ability to search almost anything rather than dig though a paper
charts hoping that information wasn’t misplaced is invaluable. The Robert C. Byrd Clinic has
been using the Vitera system since 2004, with my arrival in December 2013. The system allows
users to effectively store information locally to access throughout the clinic. With over 150 users
it is imperative that security and company policies are in place. The system has completely
changed the way a physician does his or her visits. The physician can now access any patient
chart without searching information troves for their paper chart. Instead a physician can search
though the application based on any number of criteria such as first and last name or date of
birth. Then he or she can access this information from both a laptop wirelessly or remotely from
3
home. This in itself is a massive security benefit as before a provider would have to travel with a
patient chart, increasing the chance information may be misplaced or stolen.
Here are a couple examples of how Vitera has befitted the clinic. John Doe calls the clinic
asking for a medication refill, but his primary care provider (PCP) is out of the office on
vacation. One of two things could happen at this point to ensure the patient receives his
medication refill. John Doe could be seen by another provider in the clinic as he or she could
easily review previous notes and prescribe a refill, and electronically at that. The other option is
John Doe’s PCP could log into the system remotely and send the prescription renewal directly to
the pharmacy electronically for John to pick up at his convenience. This is two of the many
examples EHR and EMR software have revolutionized patient to provider interaction.
As mentioned in the first paragraph law dictated that to receive full Medicaid and
Medicare payments an eligible provider needed to meet certain reporting criteria required by and
listed in Meaningful Use. However what wasn’t mentioned was that there is an incentive plan for
early adoption of a Certified Electronic Health Record Technology or (CEHRT). This incentive
totals over 40,000 dollars in a 4-5 year reporting period per eligible provider (EP). This was a
huge opportunity for companies to develop and market their software. This ultimately led to
hundreds of EHR and EMR applications emerging to jump in the tread and make a quick profit.
The basic use for electronic medical software is to better organize and document patient
information. Either though indexing scanned paper records or though allowing more flexible
access to information. Increase HIPAA security and provide assistance to physicians in
diagnosing patients. Allowing reports for staticical research or exporting charts between systems.
In the future the medical industry will start to see apps focused around self diagnosing apps and
mobile analyzing equipment. These apps will report findings directly to the software allowing
4
provider pre-assessment. As of today a growing trend can be seen in the market. More companies
are and will start to sellout to larger ones, eventually becoming one global medical software or
only a few. As Meaningful Use requires stricter guild lines in the future, more companies will
sell out.
5
Reference
LDS Hospital, . (October 28, 2009). The HELP hospital information system: update 1998.
Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10405877?
ordinalpos=&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.SmartSearch
&log$=citationsensor
System Evaluation Paper
Michael Vance
CIS/207
6/30/2014
2
System Evaluation Paper
My system evaluation paper will be on electronic medical records systems. I have been in
the field for about six years now working with two different systems in that time. The first
system being InteGreat EHR a MED3OOO company, now I work at the Robert C. Byrd Clinic
using Vitera a Greenway company. One of the earliest electronic medical systems was a system
named Health Evaluation through Logical Programming or HELP. This system was developed in
the in the 1960’s (LDS Hospital, 1998). Electronic medical records are nothing new to the
technology field and have been around since the 1960’s. They became more main stream in 2010
when Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or commonly
referred to as ObamaCare. This required medical facilities to meet certain reporting criteria
named Meaningful Use or they received a cut in Medicaid and Medicare payments. And so
began the spike in EHR and EMR development and sells to companies.
Most medical record systems are sold as both a practice management and clinical storage
system. But the largest bonus of each system is the organizational capabilities that can benefit
medical facilities. Having the ability to search almost anything rather than dig though a paper
charts hoping that information wasn’t misplaced is invaluable. The Robert C. Byrd Clinic has
been using the Vitera system since 2004, with my arrival in December 2013. The system allows
users to effectively store information locally to access throughout the clinic. With over 150 users
it is imperative that security and company policies are in place. The system has completely
changed the way a physician does his or her visits. The physician can now access any patient
chart without searching information troves for their paper chart. Instead a physician can search
though the application based on any number of criteria such as first and last name or date of
birth. Then he or she can access this information from both a laptop wirelessly or remotely from
3
home. This in itself is a massive security benefit as before a provider would have to travel with a
patient chart, increasing the chance information may be misplaced or stolen.
Here are a couple examples of how Vitera has befitted the clinic. John Doe calls the clinic
asking for a medication refill, but his primary care provider (PCP) is out of the office on
vacation. One of two things could happen at this point to ensure the patient receives his
medication refill. John Doe could be seen by another provider in the clinic as he or she could
easily review previous notes and prescribe a refill, and electronically at that. The other option is
John Doe’s PCP could log into the system remotely and send the prescription renewal directly to
the pharmacy electronically for John to pick up at his convenience. This is two of the many
examples EHR and EMR software have revolutionized patient to provider interaction.
As mentioned in the first paragraph law dictated that to receive full Medicaid and
Medicare payments an eligible provider needed to meet certain reporting criteria required by and
listed in Meaningful Use. However what wasn’t mentioned was that there is an incentive plan for
early adoption of a Certified Electronic Health Record Technology or (CEHRT). This incentive
totals over 40,000 dollars in a 4-5 year reporting period per eligible provider (EP). This was a
huge opportunity for companies to develop and market their software. This ultimately led to
hundreds of EHR and EMR applications emerging to jump in the tread and make a quick profit.
The basic use for electronic medical software is to better organize and document patient
information. Either though indexing scanned paper records or though allowing more flexible
access to information. Increase HIPAA security and provide assistance to physicians in
diagnosing patients. Allowing reports for staticical research or exporting charts between systems.
In the future the medical industry will start to see apps focused around self diagnosing apps and
mobile analyzing equipment. These apps will report findings directly to the software allowing
4
provider pre-assessment. As of today a growing trend can be seen in the market. More companies
are and will start to sellout to larger ones, eventually becoming one global medical software or
only a few. As Meaningful Use requires stricter guild lines in the future, more companies will
sell out.
5
Reference
LDS Hospital, . (October 28, 2009). The HELP hospital information system: update 1998.
Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10405877?
ordinalpos=&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.SmartSearch
&log$=citationsensor
