ISAM 5338 - Spring 2007

Patient Care Online

A New Approach to

Quality Patient Care

< Business Definition >

Prepared by Hani Bismar

ISAM 5338 Spring 2007 – Prepared By Hani Bismar

Patient Care Online• Background

– Patient treatment takes a lot of coordinated efforts from multiple teams and involves tremendous amount of paperwork in order to provides quality care and complies with many rules and laws, specifically the Healthcare Information Privacy and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

– Patient health information is considered private and should be treated by all healthcare providers as such

– Patient health information must be kept under extreme confidentially and cannot be released without proper authorization

ISAM 5338 Spring 2007 – Prepared By Hani Bismar

Patient Care Online• Current Trends

– When patient is referred to a healthcare provider (physician), he or she is required to fill out paperwork consist of many forms, consents, acknowledgements and authorizations

– This is an extremely lengthy process that could take between 30 minutes to an over hour

– Patient has to fill out similar paperwork at every visit to a different provider; sometimes to the same provider to ensure that all forms are current!

– Patient’s Health Record is transferred between providers (after patient authorization) using fax!

– Only one person can review the paper health record at a time– Health records must be collected (from a storage area) and

prepared before the patient visit– Most healthcare provider clinics are equipped with scheduling

and insurance billing software (aka Practice Management software) that is not enabled online

– Practice management software, at the most, handles insurance billing and produce accounting reports

ISAM 5338 Spring 2007 – Prepared By Hani Bismar

Patient Care OnlinePatient Care Process Flow (simplified)

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Pre-visit PaperworkHealthcare

Questionnaires

Physician:History and

physical

Physician:DocumentationAnd Treatment

Plan

Physician:Orders Labs

and Prescriptions

Treatment and Procedures

End of visit and Check-out

Dispense RxAnd Lab Order

Processing

Labs Results

Post-Visit and Home Care

Start of Visit

Staff to Collect Patient Health

Information

ISAM 5338 Spring 2007 – Prepared By Hani Bismar

Patient Care Online• Business Needs

– Improve patient safety– Decrease medication errors

• Decease drug interactions• Prevent allergic reactions to drugs

– One of the most important commodities in healthcare business is time (patient, physician and staff)

– A Different method for patients to fill out paperwork faster, easier and most importantly more accurate is needed

– This method will decrease patient waiting time at the clinic and will let physicians and staff concentrate on providing better care instead of handling paperwork!

– It will enable transferring patient records between healthcare provider using more secure methods than fax

– It will let the physician review the patient information remotely when needed

ISAM 5338 Spring 2007 – Prepared By Hani Bismar

Patient Care Online• Proposed Approach

– Enabling paperwork ONLINE • Patient fills out forms online at the convince of

his/her home at any time before visiting the clinic• Physician and staff retrieve forms online

– Enabling treatment plan ONLINE• Physician fills out treatment plan during the visit

ISAM 5338 Spring 2007 – Prepared By Hani Bismar

Patient Care Online• Proposed Solution and Benefits

– Online registration– Patient self-assessment form (pre-visit health questionnaire)

• Information is always available– Physician can retrieve the information from any web browser in case of an

emergency call when the physician not in the clinic– Staff can retrieve the information quickly without the need to go to the medical

record storage area and hunt for the patient record– More than one person can review the same record at the same time

• Patient Safety– Increases accuracy of patient health information– Decreases medication errors– Prevents allergic reactions to drugs

• Provides online patient education– Provides online FAQ for specific procedures– Provides online healthcare references

• Patient survey– Gives the patient the opportunity to fill out an online survey about their visit

(treatment) experience. This can be an invaluable feedback for both the physician and the staff to adjust accordingly

ISAM 5338 Spring 2007 – Prepared By Hani Bismar

Patient Care Online• Conclusion

–Partial HER / EMR

• Questions?

• Thank You!

• Contact Info: hbismar@yahoo.com