The Florida Project Major Steps in Advancing EMR Announced by FCACC To find out more about MedRecordsAlert visit: www.medrecordsalert.com Over the past year, your Council has been actively involved in developing a joint agreement with an EMR vendor to provide our membership with the finest cardiology program, and make it affordable to all of our members. We embarked upon this project realizing that the major obstacles to implementing an EMR is cost, ease of use, and ease of transition to a paperless office. As a result, the Council has selected BML MedRecords Alert, LLC, as the vendor of choice, providing us with a highly effective, easily adaptable cardiology software program, and a company that is fully committed to improving the healthcare of our patients. This project has presented the Council with insight in how to go about selecting an EMR, and why we chose, as our preferred provider, BML. Our choice was based on the following: 1. BML is CCHIT certified: CCHIT, the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology, is the recognized certification authority for electronic health records and their networks, and an independent, voluntary, private-sector initiative. CCHIT’s mission is to accelerate the adoption of health information technology by creating an efficient, credible and sustainable product certification program. Certification indicates that a company has met over 150 criteria for functionality, security, reliability and interoperability. 2. BML is a complete Cardiology and Practice Management System: BML’s Physician’s Solution is a patient information management system that provides medical offices with a complete, sophisticated, flexible and easy to use method of entering and storing patient health information, electronically. It effectively manages all aspects of treatment, including scheduling and message review, patient visits and procedures, lab management, prescription and refill requests, claims, collections and reports. Physician’s Solution readily communicates with leading practice management (billing) programs and integrates seamlessly with BML’s practice management and electronic claims processing system. 3. BML is Cost Effective: To be effective, an EMR must be affordable for both small one physician offices and large multi-physician offices. The FCACC and BML have established two routes to affordability: a. Via a reduced “traditional” fee for licensing software, and maintenance. b. Via a special FCACC “Rental Model”, that eliminates up-front fees, eliminates the cost of an in-house server, and establishes a low cost monthly fee, which includes all maintenance. The FCACC “Rental Model” provides that BML not only supplies the software for the EMR to be run on the physician’s network, but includes in the monthly cost all service, updates, data storage on BML’s server, as well as patient healthcare “vaults” (“Patient Direct”), at no additional cost. Furthermore, BML’s Net Fail Safe System, allows for read only local access to patient records in case of internet failure. 4. Further reduction of EMR fees: The FCACC in coordination with BML, wishes to encourage the federal and state initiative to establish Personal Medical Vaults for all individuals in the state, through the Patient Direct program (see #5). As a result, based upon the number of patients participating in the program, there will be a reduction of the monthly EMR cost. 5. BML’s Patient Direct”: This unique program gives FCACC members the infrastructure for our patients to have their own Personal Health Vault. It allows the physician, with one “click”, to place lab results in a patient’s vault, including EKG’s, caths, and any other vital information necessary, should an emergency occur. As cardiology patients most often present the highest risk of medical complications, such a system allows an individual to give permission for their medical records to be accessed by an authenticated health care provider, over a secure internet connection, anywhere in the world, 24/7, should a need arise. This may include the need for a personal medical history to be available during times of medical emergencies, disaster relief, or when visiting a new provider. 6. Data Collection: The FCACC believes that effective HIPAA compliant data collection, and analysis of large populations, can give significant information to our members as to efficacy outcomes regarding drug, and surgical and other therapies, device utilization and Pay For Performance issues. By pooling statewide data on a single platform, with a common server, analysis of new procedures can more easily be made and available to FCACC members. 7. Funding Chapter Activities: The FCACC, has, as its core objectives, to serve its members and the community, through its educational outreach programs. The FCACC, in cooperation with BML, has designed a program to help fund these programs based on the success of its EMR program. Such funding will aid in improving health care and health care delivery throughout the state. We want to thank the members for their interest in this area. The question is no longer whether to integrate EMR’s into our practices, but when. Our recommendations have come about after countless hours spent by the Council through it’s sub-committee on Computers in Cardiology to analyze, evaluate and finally determine what it considers the most appropriate vendor for it’s membership. More about this in the coming months as FCACC stands in the forefront of support for the use of Electronic Medical Records to maintain the highest quality of Cardiovascular Care.