meridianEMR Advantages
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Template Based Software with the Blended Advantage
A template driven EMR is a much more comprehensive EMR system that requires the input of physicians to design. Templates are developed based on each specialty and follow the thought process and examination habits of physicians.
As you can imagine, the costs and time to develop this method of documenting in an EMR far exceeds SOAP-based products that allow the provider to merely type or dictate paragraphs into the system. It has cost millions of dollars in physician and software development time to make our system flow like a physician thinks and practices medicine. When witnessing demonstrations of competitive EMR systems, this becomes very evident to the providers that will actually be using the system.
We are also the developers of the Blended Template concept. This allows us to develop the core clinical content and maintain the CPT Coding rules in our templates while providing the ability to allow you to customize the templates to meet your needs. You get the "Best of Both Worlds", specific templates for your specialty that are "ready to go" and the ability to customize them without any issues for future updates.
Proper Coding
This is an area that can provide substantial benefits for your practice. One of our clients, a Urologist, significantly increased his practice revenue in his first year using an EMR system. Most doctors do not select the proper code because of the concern that their documentation cannot support it. During an independent audit our client was told after only ten charts were reviewed that these were the best documented charts they had ever seen.
Our unique software and advanced template design has allowed us to build artificial intelligence into our templates based on HCFA rules. The result is a detailed explanation of how the billing code is supported by the documentation that is generated. As your exam work with the patient increases, our system continues to build the supporting documentation for this code. What is the “peace of mind” of proper coding worth to your practice?
Blended Model
Our unique blended approach of installing a high-speed local server in the office while simultaneously connecting to the Internet provides you with the “best of both worlds". You have the latest in medical content available from the internet, world-wide mobile access to your medical records in true HIPAA compliancy, and the speed and high reliability of a local server. Your patient data is not just stored on your local server, but in a secured remotely hosted data site. Another benefit to our model is that unlike pure web-based products that require high-speed access, normally an expensive T1 line that costs approximately $1,000 per month, we only require one DSL or cable connection per location.
Data Encryption
As there is a tremendous need for privacy, our encryption techniques are the highest in the industry. As a matter of fact, our Chief Software Architect (who also is a physician and an owner in the company) is called on as a consultant by various organizations because of his knowledge in this area, as well as in the area of hacker prevention. Our system is probably the ONLY system where the data on the local server in an office is encrypted using the best encryption techniques available, so if this server is stolen, no one can get into this system and retrieve any data at all.
Web-based product for “Universal Access”
Any great EMR must have universal access to the patient data, so a provider can easily retrieve this information anywhere, anytime, in a HIPAA compliant manner. Our system was designed from the beginning as a web-based product, so anywhere a provider has Internet access they can access their data in a fast and secured environment. This truely makes our system unique.
Multi-Office Connectivity and Data Sharing
As a result of our blended model, your organization would receive a huge savings in the cost of connecting your various offices. Most other EMR systems we are aware of require equipment to connect multiple physical locations. Our system writes the clinical data to both your local server and our large hosted system via the Internet.
Database Reporting
As most EMR systems are NOT template based, you will have a difficult time extracting very specific data. This is because as you are primarily entering text, whether it is via the keyboard or via voice recognition, the data has to be stored as text files, not SPECIFIC fields of reportable data. This is a great reason why you should not dictate into charts if at all possible. If you want to be able to retrieve any clinical information, it must be stored in fields that can be described and mapped to a report writer. Using this technology allows you unlimited access to reporting on your vast clinical database. Remember, if you do NOT have a template driven EMR that STORES the data in defined fields, it will be almost impossible to extract and analyze the text-based paragraphs that other SOAP-based EMRs provide.
Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA) Compliance
As physicians were the prime developers and designers of our software, we are proud to offer more HIPAA compliance than probably any other company. From data encryption to logins and passwords, we take very seriously the role we play in this area. Every step of our EMR process involves encryption, security and accountability. All packets sent between computers on our system are encrypted with 128-bit SSL. Our local servers are also secure, as they are running under Linux with an encrypted file system. This means that even physical theft of a server would not compromise confidentiality. Within the system, each user has a defined security pass level that is set by the practice administrator. This ensures that each person has access only to the information he or she is permitted to see. At the server level, all requests for information are logged by the database. This provides complete accountability for who obtained confidential information and on what date and time.
Software Updates
As we are an Internet-based application, we can update our software more often than the traditional method of mailing CD's or other media. Our update process takes place automatically and without interruption to your office. We can also provide additional managed services such as weekly backups.
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