Decision Support Systems Technology

It’s been said that there’s a technological device for just about everything these days, and that statement holds true in the medical field, perhaps especially so. There is even technology nowadays that acts as a decision support system for healthcare professionals. One of the most acclaimed of these technologies is offered by DeductorMD.com, for example.

This system and others like it is designed to help practitioners during and/or after they provide care. The application helps them, first of all, to determine the level of medical decision making. All they have to do is enter data as requested by the app to receive a level recommendation.  

If the clinician is happy with the recommendation and agrees with it, he or she can then use it to aid in the billing process. Even if the practitioner ultimately does not agree with the recommendation provided by the app, he or she can use it as a jumping off point to start making important choices.

These technologies are mobile and can be accessed via Smartphones or tablets for convenient, easy, on-the-go use. Most professionals who try the app and others like it love it and agree that these technologies are making their jobs a whole lot easier.

If you are a healthcare clinician, are you using todays new healthcare app, DeductorMD?

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When Medicine and Technology Meet

These days, healthcare practitioners are being strongly encouraged to incorporate modern technologies into their daily tasks. Technology makes getting things done easier and faster. This is especially true when it comes to some of the healthcare industry’s most difficult and time consuming tasks, such as medical decision making, billing code support, and medical based billing. Fortunately, there are technologies out there that are capable of handling all of these things via one convenient app. The app available through DeductorMD.com, for example, can do all of these things and more.

Why exactly is it so important to get these types of tasks done more quickly and easily via

technology? Well, to begin with, technology helps healthcare professionals to stay on top of the new and constantly changing medical advancements that are coming about. It also help practitioners to deal when their jobs get demanding, and they can help to prevent errors and oversights as well.

These technologies can typically be accessed via tablets or Smartphones, meaning they are available anytime and anywhere for everyone’s convenience.

It’s easy to see the many benefits of such technologies as they relate to medical decision making, and healthcare professionals are advised to take advantage of these technologies as soon as possible.

If you are a healthcare clinician, are you using todays new healthcare app, DeductorMD?

Medical Evaluation and Management Applications

When it comes to medical evaluation and management, healthcare professionals have a tough job ahead of them. There is so much data to be collected and to sort through. Plus, one also has to consider the level of the medical decision making process at hand.   

Fortunately, and amazingly, there are apps that can actually help with this difficult process. Typically, these apps start by determining the level of the decision to be made. The level is based upon various factors, such as:

·         The number and breadth of possible diagnoses

·         The number of options to be considered

·         The amount of medical records available

·         The complexity of those records

·         Diagnostic testing information

·         Possible complications

·         Whether there is a risk of death involved

After considering these factors, the app is then able to help the clinician perform a thorough and proper evaluation for the patient and to input the right medical codes related to the problems and treatments received.

The most high quality and useful of these apps can typically be used on mobile devices for the convenience of both the doctor and the patient. Most Smartphones and tablets are compatible with these types of apps.

Not only do these programs make medical evaluation and management much easier, quicker processes, but other benefits include:

·         Immediate data processing

·         Eliminates the need for guesswork

·         Reduces the risk of dangerous oversights

·         Alerts the clinician to the correct MDM level very quickly

The best part is that these apps tend to be quite affordable and are comparable to other professional applications. There are even some apps that are free of charge! However, it is typically only the paid apps that offer this level of features and options. Many people try out the free ones or request a trial version of the paid ones first, however, to get a feel for how they work, and, more often than not, they’re left wondering how they ever lived without this awesome, helpful technology.

If you are a healthcare clinician, are you using todays new healthcare app, DeductorMD?

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Quality Healthcare Technology

When it comes to healthcare technology, there are a lot of different technologies available in today’s world. Some technologies are better than others in terms of what they can do and how much they can do.  There are some apps and programs, for example, that can do the work of several different apps combined, and it’s always smart to buy the technologies that can do more.

The very best technologies combine computational health programs and clinical research programs, meaning they contain basic healthcare information useful to both patients and clients and that they also allow the user to access research studies and other modern, relevant information related to their queries and that can aid in medical decision making.   

The best new technologies are also convenient ones, meaning they can be accessed anytime and anywhere, especially from mobile devices. A lot of today’s apps can be accessed via a Smartphone or tablet, making them especially valuable for those “on the go” professionals and patients.

 Finally, technologies should also help with billing needs. The billing code is incredibly complex and difficult to navigate- there is practically a different code for every single thing that could possibly happen! As such, no healthcare professional could possibly memorize every code out there, and that’s why being able to search code via keyword or category with the mere touch of a button is so vital.

It’s easy to see that a lot is expected from apps these days, but there are apps that can and do meet the demands and wishes of those involved in the healthcare industry. There are also apps that don’t quite live up to the rest and that fall short of the mark. However, it is up to those using the apps to make the right choice. Consumers are encouraged to educate themselves and to do thorough research before purchasing any one app. If they are careful enough, they can end up with just one app that supplies every function they need.

If you are a healthcare clinician, are you using todays new healthcare app, DeductorMD?

Medical Apps Deemed a Necessity in Medical Field

Once upon a time, medical apps were viewed as somewhat of a novelty. They weren’t widely used at first and were only adopted by larger, more powerful companies. Eventually, though, apps became more widely available and more affordable, leading to more widespread use. In recent years, apps have become available that can be used not just by healthcare professionals but also by consumers.

While medical apps aren’t really seen as a novelty anymore, they still aren’t being utilized as much or as effectively as they could be. Apps need to be used not just as “extra help” but as full and vital parts of entire health and wellness information systems and practices. There’s also a need for apps that better enable patients with diagnosed medical conditions to manage those conditions. 

Other needs are evident as they relate to healthcare apps as well. For example, most apps are too simple and basically just provide a more convenient way to access information. That’s helpful, but there’s a push toward apps that can do more- such as track and manage data on-the-go, that can measure vitals, and for there to actually be “prescription apps” related to certain conditions in the near future.

Currently, researchers are collecting data on which apps are the most useful and successful, in the hopes of keeping the results in mind as they develop new and better apps. Currently, convenient mobile apps tend to be favorites among both patients and healthcare professionals. In fact, researchers are predicting that the use of mobile healthcare apps will increase about 25% per year indefinitely.

That’s a pretty fast increase, but it only makes sense. As the world in general becomes more and more technologically reliant, it’s no wonder that one of the world’s most important fields- the medical field- would be taking advantage of the tools at its disposal and, in line with the goals of the healthcare industry, seeking to constantly improve them.

If you are a healthcare clinician, are you using todays new healthcare app, DeductorMD?

Medical IT is the wave of the Future

Technology has really changed the way that professionals in the medical field operate. Nowadays, almost all medical systems are “online” and “digital,” utilizing cloud and mobile technologies, as well as Electronic Health Records (EHRs). EHRs are, in particular, becoming more and more common and relied upon since they enable a health care profession to access an individual’s entire medical history via phone, tablet, or computer.

As a result of this increased dependence on technology, new software and programs are being developed. TeleHealth is a great example of this type of growth and development. This program, one of the first of its kind, can actually enable doctors and patients to speak with one another via a video chat function. Through this program, even patients who can’t make it into the office can still receive diagnoses and medical advice and support.

Programs like TeleHealth aren’t the only indicator that the medical field is becoming more technologically dependent. Consider, for example the fact that pharmacy Rite Aid recently partnered with GreatCall, a program that offers high-tech alert products. These products include a special emergency-only phone, waterproof alert devices for senior citizens, and even Smartphone and other highly advanced safety applications for use by the general public.

Similarly, a company known as Validic was recently awarded for its special interoperability technologies, which allow patients to access their EHRs. They can also schedule medical appointments using a variety of devices thanks to the technologies.

Of course, medical technologies have to constantly grow and change in order to stay relevant. EHR systems are constantly evolving to be more user friendly and cost effective for everyone. Despite the further changes that will undoubtedly occur in the coming years, it’s obvious that technology is the way of the future in the medical field.

If you are a healthcare clinician, are you using todays new healthcare app, DeductorMD?

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Big News in the World of Medical Informatics

Medical informatics can be described as the application or use of information technology to assist in resolution of various medical issues. Since technology is rapidly changing, it makes sense that the face of medical informatics would be changing rapidly as well. Researchers and practitioners now have access to more information than ever before, and at least one research institution has recognized this fact and is doing something about it.

The University of Missouri at Kansas City recently brought on Mark Hoffman to work with and expand the scope of the University’s Center for Health Insights. The Center’s main goal is to better understand and use informatics in a variety of research settings and clinical medical settings. Hoffman was formerly the vice president of Cerner Corporation  and is expected to bring much knowledge and expertise to the university and to the informatics field in general.

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Should You Charge for Evaluations?

Doctors have two choices when it comes to initial appointments, often intended for evaluation or diagnostic purposes, with patients. They can either offer these consultations free of charge or they can charge for them. While it might seem like the smart choice would be to charge, many doctors find that they have better luck

recruiting new patients if they make the initial appointment free. Of course, you could end up wasting a lot of time on patients who never come back if you do offer these free evaluations, so it’s all about weighing the pros and cons for your practice.

Fortunately, whether you charge or not, you can utilize new tools for medical evaluation and management procedures. One great tool in the medical evaluation and management world is a special electronic device app known as the DeductorMD. This app allows healthcare professionals to easily record information from the evaluation and to code that information in such a way so as to make billing easier, and this can be used should you choose to charge for evals or when the patient returns. No matter what choice you make about your billing, know that this app can help.

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Tips for Using Decision Support Systems

Making diagnostic decisions or other decisions about the care that a patient should receive can be difficult and time-consuming; it is for this reason that many professionals rely heavily on the use of decision supportsystems in healthcare. While these systems can be incredibly beneficial, it is important to understand that they are not without their faults. You must recognize these faults, such as the fact that they cannot accurately determine every decision that should be made for each patient.

Recognizing these faults also means doing something to counteract them. It is important, for example, to use your own knowledge to determine the accuracy of the result given by your decision support system and to use alternative decision making methods as well. In general, decision support systems are not yet highly advanced enough to be used as the sole means of providing a diagnosis or other advice to a patient.

However, the DeductorMD app can assist in prompting the proper coding for billing purposes. Works on smartphones and tablets and takes the guesswork out of the maze of coding choices. You take care of your patients, let DeductorMD take care of billing.

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Cerner Corp and Children’s National Health System Join Forces

Cerner Corp recently announced that it will be joining forces with Children’s National Health System of Washington D.C. The reason for this new  partnership is both exciting and intriguing: the two organizations will be working together to create the United States’ very first institute devoted to childhood health informatics.

The two groups already have a name for their new institution—the Bear Institute, which they will form and develop over the next seven years. The groups say that they wish to use health informatics technologies to offer better pediatric care, to perform research, and to education pediatricians and other childhood healthcare practitioners.

While there are many exciting things in the works for the Bear Institute, some of the more innovative ideas from the organizations include making decision support systems more effective by linking them with genomic profiles, linking general information about patients with relevant clinical trials, and allowing patients more control over their own health and healthcare experiences through secure programs that utilize web portals.

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The Mayo Clinic Invests in a Healthcare App

Mayo Clinic (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Mayo Clinic recently revealed that it is backing a newhealthcare app, one created by Geoffrey Clapp, and released in October of 2013. The app, known simply as “Better” offers a variety of resources to individuals seeking healthcare. Using the app, they will be able to call a doctor when needed, to get a preliminary/prospective diagnosis based on symptoms and medical history, and to input information about their medical appointments and the results of those appointments. The app does charge a small monthly fee for those who want to have easy access to healthcare practitioners but is otherwise free.

“Better” is not the only healthcare app available, however. There are also apps that help the professionals who actually provide the medical care. Geared toward recording information and making billing simpler, such apps are an excellent tool for doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals.

With both sides—patient and doctor—now able to be “linked in,” it’s easy to see how quickly the medical world is changing and advancing.

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Sharing the Responsibility of Medical Decision Making

When you think of medical decision making, you may think of it as something that you, the healthcare provider, have to do all on your own. The truth is, however, that shared decision making, which involves patients and doctors both working together to make decisions about a patient’s needs and treatment options, can actually be more beneficial both to the patient and the doctor. Patients who understand their medical

conditions and treatment options more thoroughly are often less anxious about the treatment process.

This truth has recently been explored even further by a study published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. The study looked at patients suffering from hip and knee osteoarthritis and the effect that shared medical decision making had on their experiences with the treatment process. The study found that those who were involved in shared decision making, especially when helpful applications, informative DVDs, and other knowledge tools were used, were able to make smart treatment choices more quickly and that they felt better about those choices.

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Medical Informatics Inc. and Health Tech Hatch Launch Funding Project

Medical Informatics, Inc. has long been known as a company devoted to creating technological products

that focus on helping patients by improving their experiences with healthcare professionals. Likewise, Health Tech Hatch is well known in the community as an entrepreneurial source for those who create products and offer services related to the healthcare industry.

Recently, the two organizations have joined forces to launch a funding project on the fundraising site, Indiegogo. Medical Informatics, Inc. and Health Tech Hatch have labeled their effort as “One Patient, One Number, One Card,” and describe it as a way to create a unified health records database from medical providers around the globe. If successful, the funds raised would be used to create easy identifiers for patients via new technological formats. Patients using the planned service would be able to see their health records whenever they wanted via smart phones, tablets, laptops, and other mobile devices.

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Seeking a Degree in Health Informatics?

Health informatics is an excellent field to go into, but, unfortunately, not many colleges in the United States offer educational programs in the field. Fortunately for those in the Washington area, however, two local colleges have recently teamed up to offer a new educational program. Clark College and Bellevue College are now jointly offering a bachelor’s degree in this exciting field; degrees can even be earned online for those not local to the area.  

Health informatics, for those still learning about and/or considering the field involves managing healthcare records, and these days most of that “management” involves the use of sophisticated technology. Many professionals in the industry are also responsible for working with and managing computer information systems at healthcare facilities.

Students who pursue this course of study, either through the Clark College/Bellevue College program or through another program, are likely to be in high demand upon graduation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that there will be a 21% growth in terms of the need for health informatics professionals by 2020. 

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Curation Wins Big

Curatio is relatively new to the healthcare scene; in fact, the company has only been in existence for the past four months. Amazingly, however, it’s getting noticed, and in a major way, thanks to its recent win at the annual Health 2.0 Conference held in the Silicon Valley.  The conference hosts a contest, sponsored by Novartis, that awards advancements in healthcare technology, and it granted $100,000 to Curatio for its new mobile healthcare app.

The healthcare app is called “ThaliMe” and is designed to be used specifically by those with thalassemia, a

recessive blood disorder. Not only does the app function as a tracking tool, but it also gives users access to an online support group that includes others diagnosed with the disorder, as well as doctors and other healthcare experts.

Via the app, users can get emergency advice and answers to their health-related questions from qualified healthcare professionals, and they can reach out to others who truly understand what they are going through, making the app a virtual lifeline of sorts.

The Cleveland Clinic Reveals its Top Ten List

English: Kevin Lal Shrestha, a cardiology researcher at the Cleveland Clinic. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Cleveland Clinic recently held its yearly “Innovation Summit.” This year’s summit was held at the Global Center for Health Innovation, and one of the best events of the evening was the unveiling of the Clinic’s top ten medical innovations for the coming year.

On the list, there were several devices designed to be used as decision support systems in healthcare practices. One such device was a responsive neurosimulator that is placed underneath the skin of patients with epilepsy in order to analyze brain patterns. Another of the products created for use as decision support systems in healthcare is a retinal prosthesis system that detects light in the eyes of blind patients in order to prepare them for treatments that can restore vision. With these and other exciting advancements in store, 2014 is bound to be a good year for the medical world!

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Method of Conception Plays a Role in Medical Decision Making

Mother's Love (Photo credit: Fabio Trifoni)

Doctors' advice to soon-to-be-mothers who have recently conceived is probably something that you think would stay essentially the same from doctor to doctor and from mother to mother.  A recent study published in News Medical, however, finds that medical decision making often varies based on the method of conception employed by the mother. The study, conducted by professionals from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Hebrew University, found, most notably, that women who use assisted reproductive technologies are likely to  receive different prenatal testing advice than those who conceive naturally.

One example from the study- one that really shows the variations in medical decision making between the two conception scenarios- is the finding that approximately 45% of doctors said they would automatically recommend amniocentesis for a mother thirty-seven or older if she conceived naturally, while only 19% of doctors would do the same for an older mother who had conceived with the help of reproductive technologies. The exact reasons behind this variation are not yet known, though further research is expected to be done in the near future.

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Medical Informatics Learns from E-patient Dave

It's no secret that there has been a push, in recent years, for health care professionals to share more information with their patients and with consumers in general. Recently, at a meeting of the American Medical Informatics Association's Annual Symposium, this belief—the belief in the importance of shared medical informatics—was driven home by the powerful testimony of a man known as “e-patient Dave.” His real name is Dave deBronkart, and he shared a moving story about how he survived his stage 4 renal cell

carcinoma, which he was diagnosed with back in 2007, with the help of online information and support.

Because deBronkart was diagnosed with cancer in a time before doctors were sharing a lot of information with patients, deBronkart didn't know where to turn for help dealing with his bleak prognosis. Finally, he decided to visit the Association of Cancer's Online Resources website for help. Quickly, he found all kinds of advice and information he hadn't known existed, as well as a strong support group that not only encouraged him through his battle but gave him tips and helped him to know what to expect as his treatments continued. deBronkart strongly believes that the information and support he found online saved his life, and he pleaded with the group at the meeting to continue pushing for information sharing with patients. 

More Patients Demanding Aggressive Medical Treatment

English: SAN DIEGO (Oct. 13, 2010) A laptop is used to control a training mannequin's vital signs during a mock code blue drill at the pain management clinic at Naval Medical Center San Diego. Mannequins offer health care providers the opportunity to practice using simulated patients and sophisticated technology. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Anastasia Puscian/Released) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When patients are in the late stages of a terminal illness, they generally have two choices: they can either pursue further medical evaluation and management or then pursue aggressive last-effort treatments, or they can simply opt for hospice care and pain management to help make their last days more comfortable.

A recent survey from the Pew Research Center revealed that, these days, more and more patients are choosing medical evaluation and management followed by aggressive care than simple pain management and palliative care. Back in 1990, only around 15% of those surveyed were supporters of aggressive care, while now, around 35% surveyed support aggressive care, even when there is no real reason to expect an improvement in their conditions. It appears that, as people are exposed to more and more medically related information, as they have been thanks to technological developments over the years, they feel more comfortable having their own medical opinions and voicing those opinions. 

If you are a healthcare clinician, are you using todays new healthcare app, DeductorMD?

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MedCurrent Corporation and AtlantiCare Join Forces

MedCurrent Corporation has long been considered one of the world's top providers of decision support systems inhealthcare industries, so it's fitting that AtlantiCare, the largest healthcare provider in southeast New Jersey, has chosen to partner with MedCurrent Corporation. AtlantiCare will be using one of MedCurrent's top rated decision support systems in healthcare: OrderRight, a radiology decision support

system.

While only time will tell if OrderRight turns out to be a good fit for AtlantiCare, it seems to be so far. OrderRight works with the PowerChart module of Cerner Corporation's Millennium electronic model record ordering system and is designed to improve clinical work management, patient care, and treatment planning. Furthermore, the system, in a shining example of how far medical management technologies have come, takes information about the patient that was put into the electronic model record ordering system and then uses the system's pre-set rules to make ordering and other decisions easier to make and harder to mess up. Hopefully, all will run smoothly with the technology, and AtlantiCare will be able to continue providing excellent service to customers.

If you are a healthcare clinician, are you using todays new healthcare app, DeductorMD?

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