EMR VENDOR ASSESSMENT CHECK LIST SOFTWARE EVALUATION

EMR VENDOR ASSESSMENT CHECK LIST SOFTWARE EVALUATION

Software Evaluation How do I use this? Column In the importance column indicate for yourself (physicians and staff may rate differently) how important this area is to you and how it will affect your ability to provide good patient care. Physicians please note that your staff will have a good grasp of what aspects of functionality are important to them. A good charting module is as important as the billing and scanning module. Ideally you will want to give close attention to the piece of software that has a high rating in all modules of its software. Please rate each functional requirement in terms of importance to your responsibilities or group s needs using the scale as follows: M = Mandatory (Absolutely required) D = Desirable (Nice to Have) N = Not required for my EMR Weighted Scoring Please rate each vendor in the following areas using a scale of 1 to 5. 1 = Software doesn t have this functionality or doesn t meet my group s business needs 2= Not critical to function in an EMR environment 3= Important to maintain workflow functionality to the current level 4= Will add value, or improve this practice s functionality or patient care 5 = Software exceeds functional requirements or my group s business needs When determining which vendor you wish to select, please try to choose the vendor that meets a rating of 3 for the important aspects of your practice requirements. Any area in which you find the software will reduce current functionality will be a tremendous frustration to you and your team. [1]

Please note, and Med are considered approved Saskatchewan EMR vendors, is still pending approval. Scheduling Ability to enter demographics and medical information from any terminal within practice or remotely Ability to retrieve patient demographics and appointments easily Ability to enter patient in EMR as they arrive Multiple resources concurrently (i.e. appt + procedure by appointment type or by procedure room) View schedules for physicians in office that day only (important for multi-doc practices). Template schedules easily for either single or multiple practices Book consecutive appointments for patients in a single window assigned by user or group Cancel appt but retain the procedure Ability to see when an appt was booked [2]

EMR/ Charting Layout and Functionality Ability to see the history of an appt slot Print single/grouped appt sheets Templates for family practice (including clinic form letter) Template regional labs (including bloodwork, cytology, histopathology, and bacteriology) Template regional diagnostic imaging (MRI, CT scan) Template for local diagnostic imaging companies Templates for Colposcopy Ability to create new templates or draw from a library of current templates. Flagging alerts (ie. allergies, outstanding balances) Family history Problem list Link family members [3]

EMR/ Charting Layout and Functionality Continued Medication list Vaccination list Complete physical exam or chronic disease templates Record BP/Ht/Wt/BMI Produce consult letters Graph/ trend INR s/blood sugars, or other results Voice recognition (Dragon Dictating) Internal messaging ability to message a person or group with varying degree of urgency Ability to use free text or SOAP notes Electronic prenatal record (What are the specific features of the prenatal record? See prenatal requirements listed below) [4]

Billing ICD-10 readiness Out of province Bill direct to patient or 3 rd party company Create private fee codes Create invoices Preparation of annual statements Export data to excel spreadsheets Export data to accounting software Group unpaid claims by physician or code Set access to billing information by user or group Ability to generate billing for multi-services i.e. both for hospital work as well as work within practice Ability to generate daily, weekly, monthly and yearly income reports Ability to run submission and reconciliation reports quickly during or after office hours (in under 15mins or less preferably) [5]

Referral Management Produce referrals within EMR directly from patient chart Ability to fax outgoing referrals directly to specialist s office Track outstanding referrals, (referred but waiting on date and time), separate from the tasking list Ability to manage, produce, or retrieve commonly used referral forms and templates (ie. Colposcopy, Central triage referral templates) Regularly updated specialist database of phone and fax # s Ability to attach medications or scanned documents to a referral and fax as one document to specialist Letter Generation Voice recognition Electronic fax in fax out Ability to generate a letter using information from the EMR without having to re-type existing information Customize letter format to meet needs/flexibility of practice [6]

Lab and Diagnostic Imaging Management Connection to online lab results Ability to trend results Ability to receive results by fax electronically into a queue to be reviewed by physician and linked to chart Digitally sign off results indicating physician has reviewed results Task directly to a user or group instructions linked to a lab result or scanned document Ability to search, locate and link to patient chart if demographics do not match Ability to assign review of labs to another physician s log in for a defined period of time (for locum coverage) [7]

Reporting/Research Search and group patients by specified criteria (produce mailing lists) Ability to report statistics like how many routine office visits or procedures done in a month Build customized reports Ability to run practice searches; trends, chronic disease care, medication, patient demographics etc. Search for duplicate patients and merge Track referring MDs by procedure Recalls Spell check [8]

Workflow Tracking Remember user s last session setup Disallow duplicate patients or physicians Reference 3 rd party physician directory for verification Current status of patient for all resources (i.e. are they in a study, are they attending a program etc.) Advanced tracking for pap results, recalls, referrals and patient follow-ups Consent form pop-up for certain procedures Single point of entry Mobility Secure remote access (home) Hospital access Satellite site if needed [9]

Chronic Care Management Special requirements Ability to upload from medical monitoring equipment (ECG, Audiogram, Ultrasound, Non Stress Tests) Ability to upload images from digital camera Ability to do automated appointment reminders either via email or phone system Ability to scan commonly used patient information sheets/ pamphlets to the EMR to be printed off when needed [10]

Special Requirements of Prenatal Records Auto-population of demographic information into each prenatal record Ability to close record at any point of prenatal care, indicating reason to close record (ie. delivery with date, type of delivery, complications, stillbirth, etc.) Auto-calculate gestational age in weeks from at least one field within the prenatal record Replicate the regional prenatal record for standardized use in printed and screen form Ability to comment in free text beside history yes or no questions Ability to free text or select favorite phrases/ utilize macros Link prenatal test results directly to chart as well as prenatal record Ability to populate the prenatal record with results obtained through E-labs (ie. populate the ABO field with the ABO results from E-labs rather than manually entering this information into the separate prenatal record) Auto-populate medications and allergies from the primary chart into the prenatal record Record each prenatal visit into the prenatal record, but also duplicate the visit in the regular progress notes [11]

Security What different levels of access to the program can be set up for employees/doctors? Is there a full audit trail? Additional features * Reminder: count actual clicks that it takes to complete a desired task [12]

Overall Impressions: Start-up Activities and On-going Support Satisfy the physical requirements of the office The vendor will assist with the layout design for the hardware, including printers, scanners and servers to make optimum use of available space without compromising security. The vendor will advise regarding the best option/configuration for implementation as a wired and wireless network. The vendor will advise re: accommodating the wiring that has previously been installed to support an EMR environment. The vendor product will work in a PC or Mac environment. Demo clinics The ability to see the software in action and to discuss the usage with current physician users. [13]

Transfer of all existing patient demographic and medical information to the EMR (electronic format). The vendor will provide software to copy and reformat, as necessary, existing computerized patient demographic, medical or other information. Training The vendor will provide training at the time of implementation. How much? Is the vendor able to provide online tutorials that can be done in short increments at home or during off hours to maximize physicians time away from patients? The vendor will provide progressive training..i.e. spaced according to clinic/office phased adoption of system functionality. How much? For how long? Training will be provided regarding customization of the software to work better with the clinic practice. [14]

Support The vendor will provide resources to customize the software to work with the individual physician s practice. How many? For how long? For what kind of customization? What is commonly provided and what kind of customization will incur additional cost? The vendor will provide resources to assist with setting up a process for the conversion of data from paper to electronic format and determining what should be converted. The system is web-based or proprietary? The vendor will provide information about how the software will continue to be upgraded and updated. The vendor can demonstrate that they have the resources to begin contracting and implementation of my office systems within a reasonable time period i.e. within weeks of a decision. The vendor will outline the parameters for system support.i.e. time to initial response in case of system failure, downtime, problem-solving, etc. Can they provide a disaster recovery plan? [15]

Cost Overall estimated full cost of software? Hardware What new hardware will need to be purchased? Additional Impressions The vendor listened to my comments. The demonstration inspired confidence in the product. The look and feel of the software was pleasing and comfortable for me. The vendor representative appeared to want my business. The vendor representative appeared knowledgeable about the product. [16]