Miami Children’s Hospital (MCH) and HealthFusion, Inc., have announced the successful completion of a real-time data exchange between MCH’s inpatient medical record system and the P.E.D.S. EHR Office Edition Electronic Medical Records based on HealthFusion’s MediTouch® EHR. The program is part of MCH’s commitment to quality of care and advancing technology with community pediatricians.
“By transmitting reports such as laboratory, x-ray, Emergency Department notes, etc., between the hospital and the electronic medical record in the pediatrician’s office, we accelerate the transmission of important medical information to the doctor, and improve the efficiency in the doctor’s office,” said Dr. Jacques Orces, MCH’s chief medical information officer.
Communication of data between healthcare entities, or “interoperability,” has been a key goal of federal healthcare initiatives, but has been elusive for many hospitals due to partners who haven’t implemented the infrastructure necessary to support robust health information exchange.
MCH announced the partnership with HealthFusion, which developed the MediTouch EHR from which the P.E.D.S. EHR system was created, in October 2013.
“We considered many EHRs for our community-based physician colleagues, and when we came across MediTouch, we saw it as an elegant solution – one that made sense for all the physicians we work with,” said Edward Martinez, chief information officer for Miami Children’s Health System and recipient of the 2013 CIO Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by the South Florida Business Journal. “The system is easy to use, secure, and has all the bells and whistles physicians will benefit from in an EHR. This is another example of how MCH improves the professional experience with community physicians.”
“Pediatricians and their staff who use the P.E.D.S. EHR can interface directly with the Miami Children’s Hospital’s data systems and receive vital patient information in record time,” said Martinez.
Dr. Sol Lizerbram, Chairman and co-founder of HealthFusion, said that both organizations believe this successful information exchange will address some of the frustrations expressed by healthcare providers.
“Both physicians and hospitals have voiced frustration over the lack of interoperability between different types of electronic health records systems,” said Dr. Lizerbram. “The P.E.D.S. EHR system represents improved communication between community physicians and the hospitals they work with, both in terms of technology and improved care.”
The P.E.D.S. EHR includes a robust pediatric module which facilitates quick and secure entry of patient-encounter information typical of what a pediatrician would see in his or her practice. In addition to pediatric-specific workflow functions, it also offers important features such as a built-in dosing calculator for children’s prescriptions, linkages with immunization registries, pre-loaded developmental milestones, and even using your smart phone to take a picture of a lesion or rash and uploading it into the patients chart. While it works on all laptop and desktop computers with Internet access, the P.E.D.S. EHR is native to the iPad tablet, which allows users to maintain eye contact with the patient and family while entering information.
