The Cooper Journal: Cooper shows Practice Fusion’s iPad app at Connect 2011

Cooper shows Practice Fusion’s iPad app at Connect 2011

by Nick Myers on November 16, 2011 | Comments (9)

There's nothing we like more than seeing our design work come to life. Last week, Cooper Principal Designer, Stefan Klocek went on stage at Practice Fusion Connect 11 to present a prototype of the company's new iPad app to a room of 1200 physicians. Cooper designed and developed the EMR prototype in close collaboration with Practice Fusion over the last few months.

The iPad app represents a first look at a tool that extends Practice Fusion's free electronic health record platform to a format that is portable and easy for the doctor to use while seeing a patient. The goal of the design is to make it easy to document an encounter, while keeping the focus on the patient, rather than the computer. By leveraging smart defaults, templates, voice recognition, and streamlined workflows, doctors will be able to quickly capture salient facts, make diagnoses, and rapidly order medications, labs and specialist referrals. For the large percentage of patients with common ailments, the iPad will allow charting with little or no typing, and provide a structured guide for the exam which ensures nothing falls through the cracks.

With 25 million health records, Practice Fusion is by far the largest electronic health record system in the country. Adding an iPad app to their offering will help more doctors make the transition from traditional paper-based record-keeping to a digital, cloud-based system that's available from anywhere. An increasing number of doctors are opting for a fully digital office, giving them the efficiency benefits of information technology along with the promise of more accurate diagnosis and personalized treatments.

Stefan presents the iPad prototype on stage, accompanied by Edwin Miller, VP of product management, and Alan Cooper.

Practice Fusion iPad schedule view The app makes it easy for doctors to familiarize themselves with each patient's condition. Patients are organized by appointment time and a summary view presents the most relevant items from the patient's medical history. A simple swipe reveals more detailed information or tools for quickly updating each record.

Practice Fusion iPad dictation view When meeting patients, doctors would like to focus on their needs, not keyboard typing. The app includes tools to make text entry fast and accurate, such as dictation and template features.

Credits: Stefan Klocek, Andreas Braendhaugen, Jayson McCauliff, Jenea Hayes, Raphael Guilleminot, Nick Myers, Doug LeMoine

9 Comments

Alex R Chies

November 17, 2011

I think is simply, clean, elegant. I have the sensation that to look for any data is so fast as take a look. I would not change anything, nor a pixel.

Roy N.

December 1, 2011

Looks good. I really like it. A few questions: Are there other ways to organize patients aside form appt time? Is this meant as a new patient/out patient appointment organizer and records tool? I'm thinking of another scenario: visiting or following up with in-patients who are in the hospital. Maybe this is not how this tool would be used, but MDs who work in a clinic that refers patients to a network hospital for treatment dictate notes after each in-patient visit, often at whatever computer happens to be set up for the purpose at the nurses' station. For an MD on rounds visiting multiple floors or even multiple hospitals or clinics as they often do, is there a view for patients by location? It would be handy to drive up to the second network hospital you've visited for the day, and tap a link to view only patients whom you are about to see at just that location. Or, even better, if the app was location-aware and did that automatically (you'd still have to choose a floor for GPS, me thinks, but at least you'd be in the right building). Is there a need to highlight patients by criticality? In the patient list view, chest pain is treated ~ as joint pain. That seems odd to me in any other context aside from an appointment list. A way to prioritize visits? E.g., flag "must see today" patients, or flag those you haven't yet visited, perhaps as a filmstrip at top of page? Just wondering. Roy

Administrator

December 1, 2011

Hi Roy, These are relevant questions. Thank you for your interest. Your hunch is correct - this tool is made to be the most efficient iPad charting tool for doctors with an ambulatory practice, not for in-patient visits. Location-based patient lists were mentioned during the product development process, but it didn't seem feasable for the practitioners we are designing for - doctors who spend most of their time in their own office. Highlighting condition severity in the patient list is very interesting concept. We think that offering a preview of the patient's ailment in the list is already a big step forward compared to existing EHR systems. In the interest of simplicity, it will probably remain as it is. Schedule is the default way to view the patient list, but other ways to view the list is under development.

Jerry

December 2, 2011

I agree with Roy - I am a long term care physician who sees patients at over 10 locations, with approximately 25 "stations". Having a schedule for each location would be perfect. I haven't found an EHR product that does this... and there are a growing number of practices like mine.

Shadee G

December 19, 2011

I know it's hard to tell the release date when designing such a complex app. But do you feel that it will come out in the first few months of 2012...summer 2012...end of 2012? Thanks!

Shadee G

December 19, 2011

I know it's hard to tell the release date when designing such a complex app. But do you feel that it will come out in the first few months of 2012...summer 2012...end of 2012? Thanks!

Robert G

March 16, 2012

I will echo Roy and Jerry's comments. I operate group practice for long-term care. Our group of providers work in well over 50 locations in several states. We would also need the ability to pull up lists of patients by location and to be provider specific. Moreover, since cellular internet connectivity is lacking even within some urban facilities -not to mention remote rural facilities- a workable EHR solution for us would need to be able to function with and without internet connectivity. Upon resumption of internet connectivity, the ideal system for us would then synchronize with the server/web. Is this kind of system architecture on the horizon?

Tuan Ta

March 30, 2012

I agree that you need to expand the functionality of the app to make it more flexible, especially for those of us who do inpatient and outpatient care. More and more practices are folding by doing only outpatient, as the reimbursement rates are really not that good. I am in a group that goes to 10 inpatient hospitals, as well as the office, and it would be nice if there was one system to integrate them all. We were hoping that practice fusion would be the one killer app for us, but it's seemingly harder and harder for us to integrate PF into our predominantly inpatient practice...

Tony C

April 5, 2012

Still no indication as to an approximate release date?

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