Evolving to meet the needs of your practice

Transcription

1 TELUS Health PS Suite EMR Winter Edition 2014 Evolving to meet the needs of your practice In this issue: What s new? Product update announcements Client services announcements Important reminders On the calendar Welcome, This newsletter is dedicated to providing timely, up-to-date information to the physicians who use PS Suite EMR. It s just one of the ways we want to help you understand more about the capabilities of your EMR and how to realize its value. Following our first issue, I received a number of queries about our plans for supporting and evolving our portfolio and I want to address them here for the benefit of all. The TELUS Health EMR products are managed within a single business unit called TELUS Health Physician Solutions, which is responsible for maintaining and evolving the products. Our approach is simple: We aim to continuously improve our EMR offering to better support patient outcomes, and do so in a way that minimizes disruption to all our product users. Putting this into practice over the next three to five years, we ll be working to develop our next-generation solution and move toward converging it on a national platform with world-class features. Along the way, enhancements to each of the TELUS Health EMR products will be delivered incrementally in regular updates. We will continue to support and evolve our current EMR products, including in markets where we now provide more than one choice. For example, in Ontario we support a Local Server version of PS Suite as well as an ASP (Cloud)-based version. In Alberta, we provide two of the three certified solutions: Wolf Medical and PS Suite. Our phased plan includes integrating the operations of all our EMRs into the TELUS Health Provider Solutions business unit, assessing product capabilities against physician and patient needs and delivering new collaboration services such as connections between EMRs and pharmacy systems. In 2014, we will have a continued yet renewed focus on meeting the needs of specialists. We thank the hundreds of specialists already using our EMR. TELUS Health recognizes that a good EMR can help a community-based specialist as much as a family doctor. We will be listening to you and aggressively adding many new capabilities to improve the EMR specialty experience. It s encouraging to see our users committed to their EMR and looking forward to what comes next, as we are. Please keep the questions and comments coming. Dr. Brendan Byrne Vice-President, TELUS Health

2 What s new TELUS Health launched a new pricing model in August Our former pricing model was based on graduated pricing. The licence and recurring fees varied depending on the number of physicians in a clinic, causing considerable confusion. In order to eliminate the confusion and simplify the pricing for customers, we launched the new pricing model whereby each physician pays the same licence and recurring fee, regardless of whether they are the 2nd, 3rd or even 10th physician to be added. Customers now have more clarity and greater visibility into what they are paying. One of the price changes affects the user fees for Nurse Practitioners. For customers who may be considering adding a Nurse Practitioner as a licenced user, please contact Inside Sales to obtain a quote. The fees for Nurse Practitioners who are already listed as users are subject to cost-of-living increases only. For more information, please contact Inside Sales at and press 2 for Sales. Or us at pssuiteemrinsidesales@telus.com Founder s message I have a favour to ask: Get your office ready to update to PS Suite EMR v ! Our team has worked feverishly for the last two years to enhance, fix, test and polish the next version of our software: PS Suite EMR v and later. I have been using this newer version in my office since July 2013 and, let me tell you, PS Suite EMR is in the best shape it has ever been! Many other offices have also used and tested it over the last six months; our collective feedback was used to fix issues and improve your experience. Some of your really old Mac workstations will not work with this new version. Sorry, we had no choice. Older Mac workstations can only run older OS X versions, which cannot run the current version of Java. Therefore, older OS X versions will no longer be supported with PS Suite. Only OS X 10.7 (Lion) or later will be supported. As a result, you must update any old Mac workstations that run an older OS X. I ask that you perform the important task of verifying that your workstations meet these new requirements so that you are ready to receive our newest software version within the next few months. See information later in this newsletter about how to prepare. As we continue to roll out new releases, the TELUS Health team strives to stay on top of any issues and ensure our clients are happy. Sincerely yours, Dr. Jim Kavanagh Medical Director, TELUS Health

3 Product update announcements HRM to roll out across Ontario. TELUS Health is pleased to announce that, on December 30th, OntarioMD confirmed the PS Suite Local solution had passed provincial validation for the integration of the Hospital Report Manager (HRM). This successful validation will now allow TELUS Health to offer Ontario clients who use the local solution a connection to the HRM system. In order for PS Suite clients to connect to HRM, they must first be upgraded to the latest version of PS Suite, which is release version or later. As per OntarioMD requirements, in order for clients to connect to HRM, they must have a static IP address. If you are unsure, or need to purchase, please contact your Internet Service Provider (ISP) directly. TELUS Health is actively upgrading our clients to this release as it not only contains the HRM connection, but also a vast number of corrections and new features to PS Suite EMR. TELUS Health is developing a priority rollout list based on client-reported defects. However, we are open to requests from clients wishing to get their names on the list. Specific to HRM, although clients may be in a hurry to get connected, there are actually only a handful of hospitals actively submitting reports through HRM and, therefore, priority for HRM connections will be based on geographical territories where HRM reports are actually available. The current list of hospitals connected to HRM include: Collingwood General and Marine Hospital, Georgian Bay General Hospital, Headwaters Health Care Centre, Markham Stouffville Hospital (Markham & Uxbridge Sites), Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre and Toronto East General Hospital. For more information on the OntarioMD rollout of HRM, please visit ontariomd.ca/portal/server.pt/community/hospital_report_manager/ Interested in learning more? Join our Ontario Hospital Report Manager (HRM) & Ontario Laboratories Information System (OLIS) Webinar To register for this free webinar please send an to tpsemrcommunications@telus.com February 12 at 7:00 pm

4 Product update announcements Preparing for your update to PS Suite EMR v TELUS Health will contact you over the next few months to schedule your software update. To be ready to receive the update, we ask that you perform these preparation steps: Create a user account to access the PS Suite Community portal (telushealth.force.com/pssuiteemr). You can register for an account on the log-in page. Once you submit your information, you should have access within 24 hours. Ensure that all end users in your office review the training options for PS Suite EMR v , available on the portal. Review the new minimum operating system and hardware requirements for Mac workstations (see Workstation Requirements in Preparation for PS Suite EMR v Release on the portal). If your current Mac workstations do not meet the minimum requirements, you must update your workstations prior to your software update. Upcoming changes to OHIP claims submission in Ontario. As you are likely aware, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care is launching a new way of sending and receiving medical claim files: Medical Claims Electronic Data Transfer (MCEDT). The existing legacy EDT system (modem based or TCP/IP) will stay operational until December We are actively working to integrate with the new MCEDT system in an upcoming release of PS Suite EMR. We expect to start rolling out this feature in Q In the meantime, we ask that you continue using your current legacy EDT solution. We will notify you when the new MCEDT system is available within PS Suite and to schedule your update. For more information about the new MCEDT system and how you can prepare for this change, see the PS Suite Community portal. - You must update your OS X to 10.7 (Lion) or later. If your Mac workstations are really old and cannot support this OS X, you must purchase new workstations. - If you use OmniPage (scanning), Ghostscript (faxing), or Blast (used in Ontario for some older LifeLabs installations), please contact the PS Suite EMR sales team at (option 2) to find out about replacement solutions. These applications are not supported on Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) or later. For more information, please contact Inside Sales at and press 2 for Sales. Or us at pssuiteemrinsidesales@telus.com

5 Client services announcements Advanced training courses join us in our classroom. PS Suite EMR continues to provide you with standing courses for two of our most popular classes: Improving Care Consistency through Encounter Assistants and Designing Custom Forms. Every month, these instructor-led classroom courses will be offered in our Calgary, Ottawa, Cambridge and Toronto offices. Improving Care Consistency through Encounter Assistants In this session, you will learn how to unleash the true power of PS Suite EMR by creating completely automated encounter workflows. Encounter Assistants will allow you to enter pre-written progress notes, prescribe, start a requisition form, send a message, print a handout and more, all with the click of a button. Designing Custom Forms In this session, you will learn how to create electronic versions of paper-based forms that will automatically be populated with data from PS Suite EMR when placed within the patient record. You will learn how to create and design custom forms from scratch and modify existing forms for clinical customization. Upcoming sessions** Location/City Course Name Fee Time Dates 120 7th Ave SW Calgary, ON Improving Care Consistency through Encounter Assistants $420/seat 8:30 am 12 pm Mar. 19, Apr. 23 Designing Custom Forms $560/seat 1 pm 4:30 pm Mar. 19, Apr Slater St. Ottawa, ON Improving Care Consistency through Encounter Assistants $420/seat 8:30 am 12 pm Mar. 12, Apr. 9 Designing Custom Forms $560/seat 1 pm 4:30 pm Mar. 12, Apr Pinebush Rd Cambridge, ON Improving Care Consistency through Encounter Assistants $420/seat 8:30 am 12 pm Mar. 19, Apr. 16 Designing Custom Forms $560/seat 1 pm 4:30 pm Mar. 19, Apr York St. Toronto, ON Improving Care Consistency through Encounter Assistants $420/seat 8:30 am 12 pm Mar. 26 Designing Custom Forms $560/seat 1 pm 4:30 pm Mar. 26 ** Courses have limited seating; please register early to secure your spot. For additional information on course offerings, fees, who should attend and how to register, please pssuiteemr.advancedtraining@telus.com. One of our representatives will reply within 5 business days.

6 Tips and tricks from the training corner. Tip #1 Q: When I am in the Records file viewing a patient s chart, how do I print a label for that patient? A: When working in a patient s record, double click anywhere in the demographics. This automatically opens the patient demographics window. Then just press Ctrl {Cmd} + L to print the label. Demographics area Tip #2 Q: Some of the standard CPP information visible to me in patient records is not appropriate or necessary for my role within the clinic. Is there any way to modify which information boxes I can see? A: The categories of information shown in the patient CPP area can be modified on a per-user basis when running PS Suite EMR version 5.1 or higher. Any user with the Administrator authority can log in to PS Suite and, from the main toolbar, select Settings > Edit Users. Select the user that requires modification and then click the Administered Preferences button. In the next window, deselect the undesired categories and click OK. Next, click OK in the Edit Users window to save your changes. The next time this user logs in to PS Suite, their CPP view will be modified accordingly. Additional tips For additional tips and tricks, see the FAQs in the Knowledge section of the PS Suite Community portal.

7 Reminders New address for TELUS Health EMR Support. The old address is no longer valid. Our new address is Importance of verifying your PS Suite EMR data. Occasionally, power surges or hardware malfunctions may cause hidden damage to your database by overwriting sections of good data with random data. The PS Suite verify utility checks your database for inconsistencies, repairs any inconsistent data and then runs a report that summarizes any repairs that were made. If you use an ASP-hosted implementation of PS Suite EMR, we recommend that you schedule a weekly verification on your server. Note that if you use a local implementation of PS Suite EMR, your daily backups already automatically perform a verification of your data once the backup itself is completed. A user with the Administrator authority can schedule a verify in the preferences: Steps From the main toolbar, choose Settings > Preferences > Backup and Verify. In the Action column, choose the Verify action for one day of the week and, if required, change the default scheduled time. Click Save Changes. The verify will run at the scheduled time and the system will send a message with the results of the verification to all users with the Administrator authority. Note that only the most recent verify message is kept in the message inbox. Once a new verify message is sent, the older message is automatically archived.

8 Required changes for ASP environments. TELUS Health is implementing changes to enhance the stability and availability of the servers used to access PS Suite EMR in an application service provider (ASP) environment. We are updating the domain name (also known as DNS string) that is used to connect your PS Suite EMR to the ASP terminal servers. The domain name is changing from pssuite.cma.ca to pssuite.telushealth.com Why are we implementing this change? To provide our clients with a newer, more stable environment for ASP environments and remote connections. To improve system availability. To complete our transition to TELUS Health. Ontario Ministry of Health year-end cutoff. We are all aware that the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC) yearend date is March 31st. Every year, we receive many last-minute purchases and, in order to have these purchases paid by the MOHLTC, invoices must be dated no later than March 31st. In the past, we have been able to accommodate most of these requests. However, with the implementation of a new billing system, we will not be able to backdate invoices. It is important that you keep this in mind and contact us as early as possible to avoid being disappointed. Who is affected? All of our clients who use PS Suite EMR in an ASP environment (both in the office and from remote locations) are affected. What you need to do. A letter was sent out to all ASP clients at the end of November 2013, providing instructions and advising that these changes needed to be implemented before January 31, These changes need to be made on all workstations that run PS Suite EMR, changing the domain name that is used to access the PS Suite server from pssuite.cma.ca to pssuite.telushealth.com. Failure to implement these changes will affect your ability to connect to the ASP environment once we change to the pssuite.telushealth.com domain. If you did not receive this letter, or require assistance making these changes, please contact the PS Suite EMR Technical Assistance Center at

9 On the calendar Save the date. PS Suite User Conference May 29-31, 2014, at the Markham Hilton, Toronto Ontario Hospital Report Manager (HRM) & OLIS Webinar February 12, 2014 at 7:00 p.m. Event Name Location/City Date OntarioMD EMR: Every Step Conference and Vendor Showcase Four Points Sheraton Hotel, London ON March Primary Care Today Conference International Centre, Toronto ON May 7-10 TELUS Health PS Suite User Conference Markham Hilton, Toronto ON May OntarioMD EMR: Every Step Conference and Vendor Showcase Centurion Conference & Event Center, Ottawa ON June Thank you. To those who have registered for the PS Suite Community portal, thank you! For those that haven t yet, please register today. The PS Suite Community is accessible to all PS Suite users. It is your source for important product and release information within a secure, password-protected environment. Join the discussion. Have something to say? Have questions to ask your colleague(s)? Looking for a specific article? Join other PS Suite users on the PS Suite Community portal. How do you register? If we have your address in our system, you can self-register when you visit the PS Suite Community portal webpage at telushealth.force.com/pssuiteemr If you have any difficulties registering with the PS Suite Community, please contact the PS Suite EMR Technical Assistance Centre at pssuiteemr.support@telus.com