EMR

Pharmacy Integration is Starting to Make Sense

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I’ve been writing about the need for pharmacy integration for years. Most of it negative, and deservedly so because it’s been lousy. With that said, things appear to have changed in recent years. Integration, it seems, has slowly become a thing. Maybe because I’ve been out of general pharmacy practice for so long that it … Read more

First time using Epic – initial thoughts and impressions

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Epic is an Electronic Health Record (EHR) used in hospitals all over the country. If you work in healthcare you know who they are. Epic is the top EHR system in the U.S. and they continue to gobble up market share.

According to the Epic website, the pharmacy information system (PhIS) inside Epic is officially known as the “Willow Inpatient Pharmacy System”. However, I commonly hear it referred to as simply Willow.

Over the span of my 19 year career I’ve used several pharmacy information systems, but never Willow. For whatever reason the hospitals I’ve worked in have used other EHR and/or pharmacy system vendors; GE, Siemens, MEDITECH, IDX, etc. Recently I had the opportunity to spend a couple days learning how to use Willow. I was pretty excited. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Willow, and some bad. I’ve been wanting to get firsthand knowledge for quite some time.

Disclaimer: These are my initial impressions. Two days of training isn’t nearly enough time to learn all the ins and outs of a pharmacy system. I’ve recently accepted a position where I will be using Epic, albeit not in a full-time capacity, so I’m sure that my thoughts and opinions will evolve over time.

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The benefits of an EHR may or may not be real

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I’ve had reason to think about Electronic Health Records (EHRs) these past few weeks. There is a lot riding on their success or failure. There’s no question that EHRs will be the future of all documentation in healthcare, but I’m not convinced that healthcare is ready for the transition. At least not yet.

The potential advantages of EHRs are many. In theory they offer real-time information, integration of many systems across a single platform, the ability to store, access and manipulate massive amounts of data (“business intelligence”, analytics, “big data”, etc), they provide information that follows a patient regardless of where they go or who they see, the offer potential for patients to view, edit, use, and add to their own medical information, and so on.

These are all good things. If only the potential was reality. The current state of EHRs is far from their future potential.

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Clinical documentation: composition or synthesis? [article]

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A recent article in the Journal of American Informatics Association (JAMIA) takes a look at note-writing practices of medical residents while using an electronic health record (EHR) system. Through the use of time-and-motion studies the authors concluded that there was “a high level of fragmentation of documentation activities and frequent task transitions [when using an … Read more

EHRs may not be all that after all

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The New York Times: “Computerized patient records are unlikely to cut health care costs and may actually encourage doctors to order expensive tests more often, a study published on Monday concludes. …research published Monday in the Journal Health Affairs found that doctors using computers to track tests, like X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging, ordered far … Read more

Shareable Ink plus EHR equals interesting alternative

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EMR Daily News: “Shareable Ink®, an enterprise cloud computing company that transforms paper documentation to structured data, today announced three new partnerships with leading EHR vendors that will further the company’s reach in delivering a reliable, portable and easy to implement electronic data capture solution that works with existing physician workflows. The agreements with Greenway … Read more

EHRs may not be the panacea many are hoping for

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Selected excerpts from post-gazette.com article: More and more studies are questioning the efficacy of electronic health records, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has begun collecting reports involving electronic health and IT errors, some of which have resulted in death… “The thing about these systems is that it doesn’t really look like they’re getting … Read more

Patients still not diggin’ the idea of an EHR

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EHR outlook: “Patients are still worried about how secure their data will be when stored in an EHR systems, a new study suggests. Xerox Corporation found that of 2,720 poll respondents: 80% were concerned with stolen personal information 64% were concerned with lost, damaged or corrupted files 62% were concerned with the misuse of information” I’m … Read more