2010: The Year of the Ambulatory EMR

With the turn of the fiscal year 2010, the medical informatics and IS teams launched into an ambitious agenda for the CIS Ambulatory project. As you know, CIS was first launched in BMC back in 2004 with the introduction of computerized provider order entry (CPOE). This was followed by a host of other functions including PACS (picture archiving and communications system) for viewing radiographs, and physician documentation. In 2005, CIS-Office was implemented to varying degrees across the BMP practices with emphases including medication management and historical data entry. The EMR project then turned to documentation in the outpatient setting wit hthe BAPO and BMERF primary care practice sites receiving much of the attention.

In order for CIS to continue on its successful course, we will be devoting much of the coming year to adding and enhancing tools for the ambulatory world. At present there is a large multidisciplinary team that is designing the ambulatory CPOE tool in order to faciliate use of evidence-based caresets, to expedite appropriate charging and billing process and to improve the documentation of medical decision-making.

For those clinicians who use eScription for documentation, a voice recognition dictation tool with human editors in the background, a pilot is soon to be launched whereby clinicians will migrate to Dragon voice recognition for dictation. This projection promises a significant cost savings when compared to our current dictation system. Dragon also allows the user to edit and finalize documents in real-time without having to wait for transcription nor without having to login to another system (ESA). The critical effect that I anticipate is a newly vitalized engagement, especially among the specialists who have not become proficient with the core of the EMR: Problem/Medication/Allergy/Procedure & Surgical Hx Lists.

Other major projects that have begun and will continue through the year include:

• transition to ePrescribing in order to receive federal incentive reimbursement
  
• Patient Centered Medical Home
  
• Patient Portal
  
• MPages (dynamic patient chart viewing)
  
• PowerInsight dashboards and reporting modules
  
• Formulary and drug benefit management
  Sorry for the long hiatus from posting. As you can see, we've been pretty busy gearing up for a number of exciting projects. Here's to a great year!