Medical Records: The Next GenerationNEXTGEN HEALTHCARE INPATIENT CLINICALS 2.6

BY PAUL ATHILINGAM, CONSTANCE PHILLIPS, KRISTINA LABBE

Athens/Cerner EHR

It’s Time to move on After thorough analysis, we have determined the Athens/Cerner EHR

no longer meets the needs of the institution

The Search is on A comprehensive search was conducted of other available EHR

systems to replace our failing and ailing Athens/Cerner EHR.

The Competition

Allscripts Sunrise Acute Care 6.2

NextGen Healthcare Inpatient Clinicals 2.6

Allscripts Sunrise Acute Care 6.2

Currently support 180,000 physicians in 50,000 practices, 1,500 hospitals including 100% of US News & World Report’s “Honor Roll” hospitals and 10,000 post-acute care organizations.

The varying scale of their client base enables Allscripts to connect providers and patients wherever care is delivered.

We thought interconnectivity in the hospital, in the clinic, in post-acute care facilities, or in the patient’s own home was a great attribute.

NextGen Healthcare Inpatient Clinicals 2.6

Boasts that they understand the evolving healthcare market and the importance of quality collaborative care and patient-centered, value-based medicine.

Claim expertise with fee-for-service, ACO fee-for-performance, HIPAA, Meaningful Use 2 and beyond, 5010 and ICD-10.

Can support varying practice sizes and hospitals and promote the convergence of healthcare systems and communities.

Experts in helping convert from paper to shared electronic health records that can allow patients to connect from home.

Questions we had to answer before making a choice

ONC or CCHIT certified? Both front runners are ONC certified

What requirements are you looking for in terms of design and functionality? We need a functional yet scalable solution

Can the EHR support the services does your facility provide? The solution we choose needs to support all our ancillary areas or be able to

interface with silo departmental systems such as billing is an all in one solution is not feasible

Will the system meet the meaningful use criteria needed to demonstrate improvements in patient care and other requirements? Both solutions are capable of achieving and proving meaningful use to

capture EHR incentives

Another deciding Factor

When reviewing Allscripts, we felt we were getting the ‘sales pitch’ and not any ‘value’ in what we were being presented with.

Allscripts bringing up their large install base for example, although great, doesn’t really explain to us or answer any specific questions about what Allscripts does.

NextGen however, provided real details on where they excel and how they can help an institution.

Listing their expertise in HIPAA, meaningful use and ICD-10 were major deciding factors for us.

Is it better than what we already have?: A Comparison

Athens NextGen

Web based or traditional deployment; clients/servers necessary

Web Based – easy to setup with minimal maintenance

No direct pay option to outpatients Direct pay to outpatients

Not HIPAA compliant out of the box HIPAA compliant out of the box

No email or text messaging integration

Email and text messaging integration for alerts

Custom user interface with customizable fields

No customizable fields; may seem like a negative but this ensures consistent information is being collected and stored

Is it better than what we already have?: A Comparison

Athens NextGen

Support for mobile access and multiple language

Mobile access but no support for multiple languages

Limited decision support tools Decision Support Tools

No inventory tools Integrated inventory system

Limited reporting tools Robust Reporting built in

What are we getting?

Breakdown of clinical applications from NextGen

Computer Physician Order Entry (CPOE)

Pharmacy Information System

Laboratory Information System

Radiology

Therapy Management

Mobility

Clinical Data Repository (CDR)

Physician Portal

Order Management

Medication Administration

Clinical & Physician Documentation

Computer Physician Order Entry (CPOE):

CPOE enables caregivers to automate order entry effortlessly from wherever the physician is. Physicians are able to quickly and easily select appropriate medications, labs, radiology, nursing orders, therapies, and diets from pre-defined order sets or formularies, and subsequently review an order history.

CPOE empowers doctors with evidence-based medicine toolsets to find trends across medications and diagnoses and to view other medications linked with treating an illness.

Pharmacy Information System:

NextGen Healthcare has integrated its Rx management software solutions with the CPOE and Medication Administration products to create truly closed loop medication safety.

From inventory management to bar-coded medication administration, the entire medication process is handled.

Real-time checks against the First Data Bank drug and allergy datasets make it all safe.

Laboratory Information System:

The Lab Information System uses the latest technologies to deliver a comprehensive laboratory information system developed for hospitals, reference labs, multi-site laboratories and physician groups.

The Lab Information System combines a strong feature set along with elegant and scalable architecture to deliver a solution that improves patient outcomes and laboratory efficiency.

As a mission-critical application, the architecture of the Lab Information System combines outstanding flexibility, performance and stability in an intuitive Client/Server graphical user interface.

Real-time work-center monitors alert the staff to pending work while also keeping them abreast of critical turnaround thresholds.

Radiology:

Contributes to efficient department operation with online examination order processing from requisition through results reporting.

Examination schedules allow staff to plan resource requirements ensuring that facilities and staff are utilized efficiently.

Therapy Management:

The integrated nature of these sub-systems allows the caregiver to get maximum leverage from already entered data.

Respiratory, physical, occupational, speech, and dietary therapy work lists can be automatically generated while care plans are automatically populated with the results of the latest assessments.

A caregiver always has access to the best and most current information while needing very few clicks to assess a patient.

Mobility:

Mobility provides Smart Phone access on the iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, Google, or Windows phone using a browser that works with several of its key applications, including: CPOE, Physician Portal, and Clinical Documentation.

Clinical Data Repository (CDR):

Allows for the reposing of all clinical data in one centralized database, subsequently providing easy access – in electronic or printed form— to the entire clinical history of any patient seen over their lifetime as recorded for that facility/facilities.

The CDR promotes interoperability as envisioned by the ARRA.

Physician Portal:

Enables the immediate retrieval of real-time patient information critical to timely diagnosis and treatment.

A physician dashboard, which can be customized to the particular physician’s preferences, makes using this tool effortless.

The portal also features a rich results display, and the ability to customize report formats to fit the facility’s needs—and it’s all available from anywhere and on any device that supports a browser and Internet access.

In addition, the provider will benefit from heightened privacy and security with the program’s unique auditing features, including applications designed to help the facility achieve HIPAA compliance.

Order Management:

A comprehensive browser-based application that effectively manages the flow of interdepartmental communication, including: orders, results, charges, work orders, e-mail, patient education, and reports.

Medication Administration:

This bar-code, bedside enabled system tracks and documents the safe use of medication at the point of care, promoting the "five rights" of medication administration.

Medication Administration also facilitates pre- and post-administration charting of vitals, plus waste and witness management.

It can run via browser on mobile tablets and mobile cart computers.

Clinical & Physician Documentation:

Facilitates full electronic charting at the point of care that minimizes problems with legibility – and helps to meet accreditation requirements (i.e. Joint Commission) and core measures.

Flexible design promotes interdisciplinary communication and can aid in improving patient outcomes through regular charting of patient conditions and suggested Care Plans.

Disease-based Physician Documentation utilizes best practices and provides links to Knowledge-Based Medicine.

The choice is clear

NextGen Healthcare Inpatient Clinicals 2.6 will bring us to the next generation of healthcare.

NextGen is the best EHR solution to align with the mission and vision of the organization and our long term goals.

NextGen is cost-effective, robust yet easy to implement and support and is scalable for future growth and development.

References

Nextgen.com. Clinical Applications Inpatient EHR | NextGen Healthcare Nextgen.com. (2008). Clinical applications inpatient ehr | nextgen healthcare. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.nextgen.com/Products/inpatient/Clinicals/nextgen-clinicals-applications.aspx.

Medical-software.findthebest.com. Cerner Solutions vs NextGen® ambulatory in Medical Software Medical-software.findthebest.com. (1904). Cerner solutions vs nextgen® ambulatory in medical software. [online] Retrieved from: http://medical-software.findthebest.com/compare/131-237/Cerner-Solutions-vs-NextGen-ambulatory

ONC Certified Products – CCHIT Cchit.org. (2014). Onc certified products - cchit. [online] Retrieved from: https://www.cchit.org/find-onc [Accessed: 28 Jan 2014].