Medical Informatics
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Medical Informatics
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Our MissionMedical informatics, LLC, is focused on bringing medical information together as a single unit for the physicians, laboratories, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities. We believe that every physician and attending medical staff should have access to all the medical information, across all fields, for gender specific persons within a single system. We evaluate practice management. Once we have examined your practice, we will provide an analysis of your business workflow with a summary of our findings. If requested, we will make recommendations on how to correct or customize your EMR to meet your specific needs. Our team of specialists offers complete evaluations and reports on existing healthcare systems. If there is not an existing EMR available to meet your specific needs, we have the expertise to develop one to fit your specific requirements. Our goals are to: • Save more lives by providing a patient's entire medical history rapidly • Enable providers to perform more accurate diagnoses and treatment by having more access to more complete medical histories and emerging technologies, i.e.” best practices" • Eliminate duplication of tests and procedures to save time and money without compromising the quality of healthcare. • Streamline procedures within each medical practice we encounter.
Overview of the Electronic Medical, & Health Record Systems Industry Over the past 30+ years, that I have been involved in the Medical Computer Industry, I have seen many Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems that were released into the marketplace. I have personally evaluated many of them and worked with the companies that produce them. I have made many suggestions that I know would help these companies drastically improve the productivity of the various systems, and especially the ease of use of them. Last month I heard about a situation that occurred in Afghanistan. A U.S. Marine was wounded while standing at a roadside checkpoint when an IED (improvised explosive device) exploded. A piece of shrapnel went right through the Marines body. The medic on site patched him up and the Marine was sent to a M A S H unit. At the mash unit the doctors decided that the Marine’s wounds were too serious to be treated there, and airlifted him to a hospital ship off shore. On board the hospital ship, a doctor ordered an MRI be taken of the Marine. It not only was done, but, it killed the Marine. Why, because there were no battlefield records for the doctors to see. For whatever reason, the records did not follow this patient. The Marine had another piece of shrapnel in his body that was ripped out causing the unnecessary death of this Marine. I find this unconscionable in this day and age. We have the technology and the ability to implement it. But in an industry filled with people who are just interested in making a quick buck, the correct thing is not being done. This is where we, Medical Informatics, LLC, come in. We have developed a concept that will once and for all end most unnecessary deaths. In the past few months I have, along with two colleagues, started a company that will focus on just these problems. I personally have spoken to many physicians across many disciplines, and heard them loud and clear. They need and want help. They are tired of these companies treating them as cash cows and milking them for thousands of dollars year after year. In many cases I have heard the physicians’ state that they were going forward with the production of their own systems. It is our opinion, that they can only fail, as they do not understand all of the technical procedures to produce a System. These physicians do not know what they are getting into. They also do not understand, that by adding words specific to a discipline in an EMR or EHR dictionary, it becomes a specialty specific package. Maybe a little over simplified but true, none the less. In one case, one of my partners and I did a total system evaluation of an EMR system that was created by a team of top programmers and architects; it’s good, real good. It was so good that it received a certification for meaningful use. My partner and I came up with approximately 42 changes that we felt needed to be made to the system to make it one of the best EMR systems ever produced. All 42 changes were adopted and were about to be put into place, when the doctor that owned the system, fired the programmers. Why, you may ask? As we found out at a later date, the doctor produced this system strictly as a tax write-off. He could not sell it to other physicians. He told the physicians at the demos of the system, that he, himself, did not use the system. This doctor, being as egotistical as he was, would not even sell this system so that others could benefit from it. Another area that truly needs attention is in cross discipline medical record access. A Dentist should be able to access the medical records from a Cardiologist on an individual patient to see if the patient might have mitral valve prolapse. In the treatment of any patient, it is vital that a treating physician have a total and complete picture of their patient, including test results, reports, X-Rays, CAT Scans, and MRI’s. Millions of dollars will be saved by the insurance industry if physicians do not duplicate exams that have already been completed, yet the other physicians have no access to them. When an Internist orders a blood workup on a patient, and finds that the patient’s blood sugar is high, that internist’s results would be sent to the patient’s endocrinologist. This eliminates another blood test for the patient and the endocrinologist doesn’t have to order his/her own blood workup; thus quite a savings in time and money. These simple changes in paper flow will save the insurance industry millions each and every year. This can be accomplished by inserting different types of user interfaces into an EMR’s or EHR’s. Again over simplified but definitely doable. Over the years it has become a thorn in the side of a physician when they need to access the hospital record of a patient. In many cases it can take up to a week to obtain these records, unless a physician has privileges at that hospital. A patient can actually walk out of the hospital with their records in hand, but a physician will have to wait for them. Once again this practice can be costly in terms of human life. This MUST be addressed and corrected as soon as possible. These EHR’s that are being used in hospitals today do not like to communicate with outside EMR’s. The software developers of these EHR’s want to dictate who can and cannot have access to patient’s records. The time has come to end this and move forward in the medical field by treating the patient; not allowing thethe software companies to make millions/billions. My next pet peeve is Home Health Care and the Nursing Home Industries. Record keeping is almost as if it were nonexistent. I have personally seen a home health care company’s procedure at work. They might as well not even bother to take notes or keep records. A field aide or nurse returns to the office, drops off the patient record at the front desk. From there, they are supposed to be filed away in some sort of retrievable order. The problems arise when you actually try to retrieve a patient’s records. They’ve already vanished into thin air. I have seen this first hand. Nursing homes are no better, it is almost impossible for an outside physician to access the medical record for a particular patient. Once again this must change. Taking advantage of our systems would greatly improve this existing problem. Now we come to the interface software or plug-in’s as they are called. The worst being the prescription interface programs. Most of them do not do all that they are built up to do. They do not show drug interactions in a pop up manor, alerting a physician of the possibility of a reaction when taken with another drug, this alone can cause the death of a patient. Every software development company claims that their system is the best. In all actuality not one of them even comes close to being perfect and leaves a lot to be desired. Now, I have come to the last, and perhaps the most important fact of all. In speaking to literately hundreds of physicians, it has become apparent to me that they are tired of being misled by these EHR and EMR companies. The physicians are being charged many thousands of dollars year after year for so called updates to the programs when in all actuality the updated software should have been installed at the onset of the installation. This is most prevalent in the pharmacy software packages. We at Medical Informatics, LLC have the answers and solutions to these and many other problems facing the medical industry. Medical Informatics, LLC Dr. Stephen Berman, PhD Chief Medical Informatics OfficerContact: sberman@medinfollc.com
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