Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Endocrinologist starting new practice-please help

Hello all,

I'm an endocrinologist in Denver starting a new practice. I'm very overwhelmed with all of the emr choices out there and recently realized how I'll be lucky if I can pay myself after the office overhead and staff are paid. I'm very intrigued with Amazing Charts so I have a few questions if anyone can help. I'm a newbie at this part of medicine.

1. Does anyone know if there are any endocrine practices using Amazing Charts? Would love to hear from any if there are.

2. Can amazing charts interface with other systems. In other words, if we use an outside billing source and they have a scheduling/PM system as part of there service, can we integrate it with this.

3. From an endocrinology standpoint, does Amazing Charts have template flowsheets for chronic disorders such as Diabetes, hyperlipidemia. Finally, does it interface with labcorp or quest that we can pull laboratory values into the chart.

4. What format does all of the data get stored in? I heard that data needs to be in an HL7 compliant format to interface with our web site (to implement online scheduling functions, etc). Also, if you changed to a different emr system in the future would you be able to take the data with you in this format?

I know I'm asking lots of questions, and I could spend a gazillion dollars with technology that solves them all but it's not reasonable for me so I figured I'd ask these questions. This is very important to me because this is a new practice and I want to start of right. Thanks for any and all help.

Chris

Welcome to AC. Not sure about how many endocrinologists. You could check through the user list. I don't know if you have to be a registered user or not.

There are many interfaces to labs and other management tools. I am not sure if HL7 is used. Your best bet would be to talk to Vinny Meyer who is very knowledgeable about these things. He is the moderator of the boards, so you should be able to click on his name at the bottom.

Regards

Greetings endocrinologist: Trying to answer your questions--
1. As Bert said. Hopefully one of fellow endocrinologist will respond.
2. It can interface with few PMS. I do not know the list. But if you have downloaded AC, go to admin section, see under interfaces and you get a list of all interfaces available and also ones in works.
3. None as far as I know. But you really do not need AC to do that. We have developed flow sheets for (takes maximum 5 minutes to develop one). I prefer wordpad and not pdf as you cannot enter/delete in pdf unless you have I believe professional edition of adobe at 100s of dollars.
(a) coumadin for PT/INR. http://www.aafp.org/fpm/20050500/77asys.html. You open wordpad on your pc, create tables with headings suggested in this article, put in one area where anybody in your office can import to that patients chart, then start using that. When I get INRs, I fill out the current dose, next dose, next check, forward the chart to my nurse, who calls patient, enters patient contacted and initials. She saves using the save button on top. I your workstation has MS word, it will open on right side of imported section, if it has no MS word, it will pop up as new screen.
(b) referral log: same wordpad, import. Has the following headings:
Referred to/test
Date/time
Reason
Number of visits
Insurance
Authorization number
Patient aware
Initials of referral clerk.
(c)You could develop in word pad- using this (I may be preaching to choir here)
http://www.aafp.org/fpm/20000600/diabetesflowsheet.pdf
This is in pdf. I would do in wordpad. Not done yet. One of my do list.
(d). Real primary care. May this is not useful to you as specialist.
http://www.ahrq.gov/ppip/manual/flowadul.htm
(e)hyperlipidemia: http://www.priorityhealth.com/provider/clinical/diabetes

I remember seeing Quest and labcorp on the interface list as mentioned above in admin section/interface tab.

4. Data/format. If I guess what you are asking for- it is MS access. Works fine for small doctors offices, we have 7 users at one time maximum, works fine. If you are thinking of an exit strategy, I would print the entire chart to pdf and import to new EMRs. I do not see any reason to do that. We have AC for 3 yrs, going strong. PAPERLESS. Easy backups and restoration. Even expensive EMRs which cost 10000$ (I do not want to name names) does protime/INRs as mentioned above.
Jon can build you custom interface for a price if you ask him.

Good luck
Internist.

Hello--
We have a small Endo practice here in Las Vegas. We have been using AC since reopening our group in April of this year. We consist of 2 PT Endos and 1 FT NP (thats me!). We are managing our own IT. Our chief reason for choosing AC was the reasonable cost for using it, the ease of conforming it and customizing the templates for things such as Byetta/Symlin/Insulin starts. We have 2 CDEs we work with closely but are not directly employed by us at this time. They have their own templates and forms they use. We haev had no major problems with the system.

We use a seperate billing/Practice mngmt software package that does not interface with AC--Misys Tiger--older but still functional and we were concerned about expanding our overhead quickly.

Currently we have two offices and I have set up the hardware VPN between them but will be using Window$ terminal services to allow us to log in from the other office. I have to confess I am NOT using the SYNC at this time for AC. Frankly I have seen some funny behavior when SYNCing with ACCESS before and I am afraid of wrecking my data. We use a simple back up external HD and offsite-backed up locally every day and offsite everyweek.

Not sure what other questions you have, we are pretty new to it also. I use a tablet PC while seeing my patients as does one of the other Endos. AC works GREAT on a Tablet and it gives the benefit of basically being done with a note when you leave the patients room. Try it.

I will PM you personal Email and you can direct other questions at me, If you would like i can share some of the templates and stuff we have done. None of it earth shattering but useful in getting through the day.
GOOD LUCK!

Tomas