EPOWERdoc and Unique Features of ED EMR Software

As many of you know, when an EMR or EHR vendor wants to show me their system, instead of getting a full demo of their EMR I instead ask them to show me the unique features of their EMR. Basically, I’m interested in seeing the features, functions, approach, etc that makes an EMR or EHR vendor unique from the 300+ other EMR companies in the market today. This was my approach when EPOWERdoc approached me with a request to take a look at what they’ve created with their EMRDoc software.

Turns out that EPOWERdoc has been around for 12 years and is already in 250 hospitals in 40 states. That’s a pretty good footprint for an Emergency Department comnpany. In fact, I read that they’ve done 17 million Emergency Department visits in North America in their 12 year ED EHR history. Of course, these numbers come from EPOWERdoc and we know how good EMR install counts are from EMR vendors. However, even if that numbers bloated it’s a decent sized install base. Update from EPOWERdoc: The client numbers and ED visits are correct, we started out as a Paper Template system from software printing and that is where the large client base is predominantly. We are 36 months into the EDIS market with the product you looked at and have 18 live and another 9 by first qtr 2012.

During the short demo, EPOWERdoc showed me 3 or 4 interesting things about their Drummond Group modularly certified EHR. However, the feature that hit me most was the EMRDoc prose generator. In fact, this demo was one of the reasons that I’ve started predicting an EMR documentation revolution against hard to read, bulky, clinical notes.

I wish EPOWERdoc had a video of their EMR notes prose generator to demo it. If they create a video, I’ll post it to my EMR, EHR and Healthcare IT videos website. Until then, here are before and after screenshots of the EPOWERdoc interface which shows the granular data entry and the note that was created (click on the image to see the full image).

And now the image of the outputted documentation:

We could certainly debate the finer points of the user interface for inputting the data. Plus, a screenshot doesn’t show some of the other elements they’ve created to be able to quickly handle the input of the granular data elements. What hit me was how much the second image read like a clinical note. To be honest, as I read it I felt like I was hearing someone dictating a clinical note. Are their subtle differences where dictation is better, definitely. However, they seem to have done a good job of taking the granular data and turning it into clinical prose. I’ll be interested to hear some doctors thoughts on the above to see if they agree or disagree.

There were a few other interesting EMRDoc features that stood out to me in my short EMR demo.
-As an ED EMR, you have a different workflow than an ambulatory practice. As such, you need the ability to manage multiple open records at the same time. What I think EMRDoc does really well is switching between patients, but then also tracking your last documentation location for that patient.
-Related to seeing multiple patients, EMRDoc documentation feedback tool provides the user (doctor, nurse, etc) with a real time feedback as to the status of the level of documentation for medical coding as well as what has been completed in the note. In the ED where you’re regularly pulled away to deal with a pressing problem, the feedback statuses are a great little feature.
-EMRDoc has a feature that forwards clinical information and data from the Nursing Record to the Physician Record and from various sections of the Physician Record to other sections. Pretty slick implementation that reduces having to document that same thing multiple times.
-One of the big questions for an ED EHR like EPOWERdoc is how they deal with the hospitals large HIS system. EPOWERdoc’s answer was a partnership with Iatric who uses technology allowing data insertion into non accepting systems such as Epic, Cerner, McKesson or Meditech. I’d seen Iatric (They had the amazing trick shot pool table guy at HIMSS), but it sound like I should get to know them a little more. Maybe I can get Katherine Rourke to cover them over on Hospital EMR and EHR as well.

As I said, I didn’t do a full scale top to bottom demo of the EMRDoc ED EHR system, but I thought these were some interesting features of their EHR that were worth sharing. I’d love to hear some first hand experiences from any EPOWERdoc users. Let’s hear what you think in the comments.