Anesthesiology, an important component in the overall wellbeing of the patient in pre and post surgery instances has often been ignored by software solution providers. With the advent of ambulatory surgery centers which provide a surgery focused infrastructure, it is compelling enough to spruce up and prove better solutions to simplify processes, enhance patient care and increase facility throu
Anesthesiology, an important component in the overall wellbeing of the patient in pre and post surgery instances has often been ignored by software solution providers. With the advent of ambulatory surgery centers which provide a surgery focused infrastructure, it is compelling enough to spruce up and prove better solutions to simplify processes, enhance patient care and increase facility throughput. Anesthesia EMR has therefore become talk of the town, as it helps the anesthesiologist and anesthetist to focus on accurate clinical documentation and improving the patient care/ surgery throughput.
Although believed anonymously, that anesthesiologists are indeed slow to adopt the method of monitoring the drug administration electronically, based on a research by Frost and Sullivan, it is estimated that the anesthesia EMR would have a growth rate of about 30 percent annually over the next three years.
I am very excited about the future of Specialty EMR’s in the healthcare system. The evolving nature of the U.S. health care marketplace has given room to such a need; nonetheless, the Asian and Gulf regions too provide scope to necessitate treading the modernization path of the healthcare industry.
Using an EMR surely helps the organization. Compare spending about 3 hours in recording an appointment in paper for 10 patients (assuming it takes 20 minutes to record the details for each patient) versus using the automated EMR that would help take 30 minutes only (about 2-3 minutes each for the same 10 patients). One would surely save valuable time and increase operational efficiency this way.
At Binary Spectrum, we aim at addressing to similar specific practice needs wherein the anesthesiologist firstly finds it easier and stimulating to enter this electronic process, of being able to enjoy the flexibility to manage the notes made at the surgery center in a Tablet PC and thereby increasing the revenues. Thus, maintaining the standards of anesthesiology and helping the patient experience the surgery without pain.
Maintaining the Anesthesia Records
The entire process of Anesthesia comprises of a Pre Anesthetic assessment that would take place prior to the surgery. Details like patient demographics, current medications, allergies, review of systems and past surgical history are recorded. The problem list and anesthesia plan is then structured out. Based on these, the anesthetic drugs are then administered. Care is taken for any irregularities that may occur during the loss of consciousness. Once this is done, during the surgery, the anesthesiologist accesses the application through his / her Tablet PC. This would involve an offline mode of entering data. Here the Anesthesia Flowsheet is feeded in with details like Medications, Monitors, Antibiotic Details, PACU details and any Equipments used for the surgery. Post which all the records maintained are then just plugged in to the main system, thereby collaborating the entire set of records.
Post Surgery, the application focuses on Procedures and Diagnosis notes, with the respective ICD and CPT codes alongwith the billing process. The Anesthesia Procedure Notes includes Arterial Catherization, Central Venous Catheter / Shiley Catherter Placement and Pulmonary Artery Catherterrization. The workflow
Benefits of Anesthesia EMR
The entire process enables an ease of use with charts and intuitive designs. Other such benefits include:
• 24/ 7 real time data
• Electronically document the entire patient experience
• Accessible in the Surgery Center through Tablet PC
• Go paperless to improve patient care
• Quick charge capture
• Efficient Claim generation and submission to Clearing House and Insurance Payers
No doubt, there are challenges to be faced. To take full advantage of such a system could require anesthsiologists to redesign the way they practice medicine to a certain extent. However, I also believe the benefits could be ten-fold too. In any case, bridging the gap between technology and healthcare has been and is demanding.
