UnChartIt’s been just over a year since I was appalled at the default Visit Summary. The original visit summary disengages a patient in her care. It sets up barriers like 3/4 of a page of junk before the actual content begins. So that night as a proof of concept, I cleaned up the Visit Summary. [...]
Posts Tagged ‘simplicity’
Medicare e-Rx Report
The Medicare e-Rx code drove my practice crazy last year. We e-prescribe all the time and many of us successfully attested for Meaningful Use. But the e-prescribing rule doesn’t allow for tracking that way. Instead it requires a bonus g-code be submitted. Please, Medicare, stop the madness! Sara Evans rightly recognized this as a reporting [...]
Coumadin in e-MDs
There’s been a discusssion on SupportCenter about Coumadin Plans. Mal Riddell has offered his template: Coumadin Plan Template Mal’s process: We use a shortcut for our INR/PT patients that includes a 99211 charge for the most part. If I see them significantly, I delete the charge and add the appropriate charge after the visit. The [...]
e-MDs Portal Auto-Messages
One of the setup tasks for portal is to create some standard messages — disclaimers, warnings, and the like. I had forgotten that it was one of the things I ‘ran through my readability program’ I’ve been re-writing clinic paperwork for a while. My all time fav: the HIPAA form — unrecognizable compared to the [...]
Usability of the Washington State Prescription Monitoring Program
The idea of the prescription monitoring program (PMP) rocks. Given that multiple controlled substances are potentially lethal, a prescriber or pharmacist should be able to verify other prescriptions. Transparency improves care. But it’s implemented with unnecessary friction. This is going to reduce how many busy docs or pharmacists are willing to go through the hassle. [...]
Cleaner SQL Backups — Automatic Log Out
I don’t always log out and shutdown my computer every day. Partly because things change and sometimes I’m gone. I don’t shutdown because I often log onto my machine from home (so it needs to be powered on). I don’t plan learning to logout. It’s nice to come back to the machine (via RDP) with [...]
Where to start with Macros (and e-MDs)
Ah, too many clicks. Macros are one of my loves the last few years. Reduce a single thought into a single physical action. It’s not that I can’t click 5 times to do one thing. Actually, I’m pretty good at clicking. As I’ve mentioned in my article about becoming my patient’s data entry technician, I’ve [...]
Deskilling
A recent study hits too close to home: “Deskilling and adaptation among primary care physicians using two work innovations” says, essentially, that as primary care docs try to use innovation like EHRs and clinical guidelines, we become less trustworthy to our patients, less confident. Or as I’ve put it elsewhere here: I don’t want to [...]
Opioid Treatment Agreement
Treatment Agreement I am being prescribed “controlled medications”. These may relieve pain but could cause overdose or become habit forming. It is my doctor’s duty to make sure these medications are being used as safely as possible and as intended. I will ask for refills only from my primary doctor. I will use only one [...]
Visit Summary Self-Hosting
Note: This is a post from 8/2011 — this article won’t stay up to date. If you are going to self-host, you need to pull original files off the server. When I first got e-MDs 7.0, one of the first things I did was look at the Visit Summary. As I went to lunch a [...]
Patient Health History Form
Christine Hunter, PA, provided this Word Document which lines up with the history that you would put in for e-MDs health summary. Original Discussion on SupportCenter Patient Health Summary Form
Interuptions and Practice
Multitasking is generally a myth. People think they can multi-task but the reality is that all the tasks they are doing are taking a hit. In an article in Time magazine 97.5% of the general population are not successful at multi-tasking. So when faced with two tasks at once, say Driving and Texting, we’re more [...]
Rethinking Search in EHRs
Let’s take a stroll down memory lane for a moment. In the mid-1990s the Web exploded into mainstream. It started with a few sites with academic papers, recipes, jokes, etc. Suddenly it had more information than you could possibly get to. The rapid change in complexity was astounding. Into that spot came one of the [...]
Visit Summary Cleanup (1.0)
At it’s most basic, I’d like to make Visit Summaries usable for patients. This seriously doesn’t work for me: Document ID a5946a99-3ebb-44ad-8d6c-7ecbe59b1d11 By reducing the header, it saves a half a sheet and really simplifies it. It’s still not pretty/legible — reformatting is equally important. But for a few minutes of editing the XSL file, [...]
E-MDs Interface Janitor
e-MDs doesn’t really allow much customization of the chart interface. It’s trying to be everything to everyone. That means I use it all day long and have buttons that I haven’t clicked in 3 years. If I could customize it might look more like this. Wish I could make it not waste so much vertical [...]
