I have been using Updox for about a month, and it has made a big difference in reducing the amount of paper, but also in making documentation easier.
What I like about Updox, that I don't think you can do with something like Paperport, is import items directly into a patient's chart without having that chart open at any time. So I use it to put stuff into a patient's chart that I want to have there more for documentation than anything else.
For example, I fill out a surgical pre-op clearance form for a patient, and fax it along with labs and EKG to the surgeon and/or hospital. I fax all these things from Updox, but also send it to the EMR at the same time (under a heading 'correspondence'). Having done this, not only is the fax sent, but everything I have faxed (including any remarks on the cover sheet) is now automatically filed inside the patient's chart and I never had to open the patient's chart at all.
If I scrawl a note to a patient on letterhead and mail it, I used to scan it in, then open the patient's chart and import it. Now I scan it to Updox before mailing. Then, possibly later, when I look in my Updox inbox, the scanned note is there and I can just send it to the patient's EMR, again without opening up the patient's chart in AC. I believe, though not sure, that the number of mouse clicks to do this with Updox is about the same or less than the number of clicks to do it via opening the chart in AC. But what I like best is that I can do this sort of thing while in another patient's chart, without having to finish or save the chart and open up the one I'm sending to.
Haven't used the portal yet. I have the feeling most of my patients would probably turn up their hearing aids and say "Vat's a portal?"
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Michael Jacobson
New York, NY
