A Few Goodbyes

Over the past month or so, we have undergone a number of changes here at the P & P office. One of our long-time employees and manager of support, Aaron Judd, resigned from his position in order to pursue a new direction for his career. Aaron dedicated 14 years to P & P and we are grateful for his expertise and dedication to this company. Aaron was the person you went to for answers and to get this done. As he begins a new chapter of his career, we wish him nothing but the best, but he will certainly be missed.

Additionally, if you have called into help desk recently, you may have missed a familiar voice. Jessica Nakamura has also chosen to move on from P & P. Jessica was with us for almost a year and, during that time, worked tirelessly to help our clients to the best of her ability. She too will be missed.

With these major changes in the company, we are doing our best to re-organize and fill the holes left behind. Please be a little patient with us as we find the best way to make sure you receive the best customer service possible.

Introducing: Liz!

Our newest employee is hoping to hit the ground running. Liz joined the sales team just a few weeks ago and is working hard to learn CIS so she can get out on the road and talking to potential clients. And she’s learning fast! In no time, she’ll be able to answer the most complicated questions just as well as anyone who’s been in the industry for years.

Over her career, Liz’s aspirations and goals have changed and evolved and, as a result, her experience is wide and varied. She’s done TV and broadcasting, sales, and massage therapy. Now, she’s back in sales, and learning a whole new industry, but she is still practicing to keep her accreditation as a registered massage therapist.

Liz loves to travel and has been to a total of 7 countries, 8 Canadian provinces and 18 of the states to the south of us. She also has a big heart for disaster relief and healthcare concerns. She regularly volunteers to help out and fundraise for events. Sports, all sports, hold a special place in her life. She plays tennis and occasionally sails, but her true enjoyment of sports comes from watching in the stands and getting into the spirit and energy of the game. Though she insists she doesn’t paint her face – anymore – she does own a Blue Jays foam finger and a blue Maple Leafs wig.

Once Liz finds her bearings in a brand new industry, you’ll see her around quite a bit as she starts visiting potential clients and following up on your questions about our EMR software.

Introducing: Jolene!

If you have called to talk to our leader, CEO, and president in the last few weeks, you may have been surprised to be greeted by a new voice. Jolene, or Jo as we in the office have quickly become accustom to calling her, has a hefty task in front of her, but one we’re confident she’s taking head on. Replacing Jen, Moe’s long-time executive assistant -- who is thoroughly enjoying her maternity leave -- is not an easy accomplishment, but so far, Jo has fit right into the role. She’s been with the company for only a couple months, but already she’s getting comfortable keeping everything on track and on task.

Jo is pretty new to the GTA: a little more than a year ago, she packed up her adorable puppy, Milo, and followed a new job to Toronto in search of some adventure and a fresh change of scenery. We’re very glad she’s found her way to us!

Thank You!

The Primary Care Today show was a resounding success! We always enjoy the chance to meet our current clients as well as any physicians or clinic representatives who are interested in learning about our software. Thank you for coming to visit our booth and for taking the time to chat with us about our product. We hope you are as excited about the future of healthcare and EMR systems as we are.

For those of you who entered our draw for the iPad2, don't forget to book your demo before July 1st, which is when the draw will be taking place. We appreciate any chance we can get to show off our software; we know it doesn't disappoint.

The Benefits of an EMR System: The Intangibles

Direct savings and hidden savings can quantified. It may be difficult, but with some attention to detail, the savings and benefits can be added up and recognized. However, there many benefits that cannot be translated into a cash value but, in the end, are just as real and just as important.

Privacy and Security

An electronic management system allows only authorized users to access their work and associated data. Medical records can be secured, and routed only to those with a need to access the data. Alternatively, extraordinary measures would be necessary to implement office procedures designed to protect such documents. If a user is assigned a difficult case, they must handle it, or pass it to someone who can. Work cannot just disappear. The automated audit trail (history) leaves an indelible record of who, what, where and when during each step of the workflow as documents and information are being processed.

Improved Service

Access to information is instantaneous and staff or referring physicians can book exams easily over the web. The frequent administrative use of the phone and fax to book and confirm appointments can be reduced or eliminated, so staff can concentrate on more productive and rewarding office work.

Employee Satisfaction

When computerized workflow systems were in there infancy, there was fear that users would feel oppressed and dissatisfied by being directed by a computer. The actual experience is in fact just the opposite; users became more satisfied with their work. Workplace experts recognized that the optimum work environment was to select the one most important piece of work (assigning suitable work- the right thing), and complete it (feeling a sense of accomplishment), before moving on to the next item.

Organizational Options

There can be certain advantages to performing certain work in a particular location. Local labor markets, tax incentives and real estate resources can vary widely from location to location, and indeed internationally. Information portability is much more efficient and so work can be performed at any location and outside normal business hours. Indeed the physical office space can be significantly reduced because the paper file burden can be minimized or eliminated. This is of a particular concern to physicians and other healthcare professionals that rely heavily on paper records and are required by law to archive and store all patient files for extended periods of time.

Contributed by Ted Barrington.

The Benefits of an EMR System: The Benefits You Might Not Notice

The direct cost savings are readily measured and recognized. But there is another set of benefits that are real and valuable but are very difficult to measure, sometimes called the hidden savings or soft savings.

Control

One of the problems of manual work management is that the most experienced people are also expert at finding the easy work, making their productivity appear even higher. Yet they are the ones who should be handling the hardest cases that a beginner might struggle with for a long time. A workflow system ensures the cases/work is assigned to the most appropriate worker.

Monitoring

Practically all systems include reporting and analysis tools that can be used by a manager to make informed decisions regarding business processes. Some examples include the total work accomplished, the volume, turn-around time, client response times, patient outcomes etc.

Management

Managers can expand the span of their supervisory control, spend more time improving workers skills and have more time to help with the most demanding cases. With an EMR, routine reporting, data collection and the assignment of work now becomes an automated function of the workflow management system. Implementation necessarily increases the qualitative nature of a manager’s contribution to an organization.

Process Improvement Opportunity

To realize productivity improvements sometimes a process should be completely taken apart and redesigned, akin to tearing down a house and rebuilding it anew. This is an expensive proposition but here lies the greatest potential for organizational improvements when implementing a computerized workflow system. Dramatic changes to a work process can be traumatic for users; however most workers recognize the improved process and can migrate to the new system with far less training. The examination and reengineering of the current workflow is inevitable when an organization or team is committed to employing a computerized management system.

The Benefits of an EMR System: Money, Money, Money

There aren't too many people who would say they don't want any more money. In fact, the expense of an electronic medical record system is one of the things that causes physicians and clinics to hesitate when it comes time to adopt a system. Even with the funding available from OntarioMD, the cost of an EMR system can seem overwhelming.

But what if an EMR system can actually save a clinic money? Over time, the system will pay for itself. While the direct cost savings can be substantial, they aren't likely to cover the cost of the system -- right away, that is. But, over time, the direct savings will build up.

How, exactly? You will no longer need as many staff members to perform tasks that can now be completed automatically or more efficiently using the EMR system. And, once implemented and used, the reporting functionalities built into and EMR system can help you properly allocate your resources so that money is being spent as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Of course, these direct cost savings only scratch the surface of the benefits an EMR system can bring to your clinic. Stay tuned over the next couple bog posts as we cover some of the other benefits, noticeable or not.

(Contributed by Ted Barrington)