4medica's IHR to be demonstrated at HIMSS conference

4medica, the leading independent provider of Web-based connectivity between physicians and clinical laboratories, today announced the launch of its Integrated Health Record (IHR^™), which includes modular components designed to enable hospitals and eligible providers to demonstrate “meaningful use” and qualify for federal government incentives in 2011. A multisource, patient-centric medical record, the IHR unites data across diverse care settings to give physicians quick access to a complete picture of the individual patient at critical decision points. 4medica will demonstrate the debut of its IHR at booth #8647 at the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference, March 1–4 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.

“The architecture and capabilities of our IHR point the way toward a new kind of patient record that is more usable and sharable than the traditional electronic health records (EHRs)”

“The architecture and capabilities of our IHR point the way toward a new kind of patient record that is more usable and sharable than the traditional electronic health records (EHRs),” said Ravi Sharma, president and CEO of 4medica. “Because of the meaningful use criteria, greater emphasis is being placed on interoperability and connectivity, both of which are lacking in conventional EHRs.”

Sharma continued, “Preparing legacy applications for meaningful use will be a major undertaking for most EHR companies. Those that cannot will wither away in the next few years. Those that are successful will start migrating to the Web and will use an architecture resembling 4medica’s IHR to incorporate patient-centric data from legacy systems at multiple locations. These solutions will help physicians and hospitals transition to clinical information systems more quickly at lower cost and with less disruption. By having complete access to comprehensive data, physicians can significantly improve care outcomes.”

Building on its success in connecting more than 100 institutional customers to approximately 22,000 physicians, 4medica has combined its robust outpatient ordering and resulting system, its electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) solution and its integration ability with hospital information systems to create the new IHR platform. The IHR is especially suited to the needs of small- and medium-sized community hospitals striving to provide connectivity to their physicians and show meaningful use without having to invest in a complex and capital-intensive EHR. While the IHR offers an alternative, it can also be collaborative with both inpatient and outpatient EHRs to provide connectivity and system interoperability.

4medica already has bidirectional interfaces with 25 leading EHR products and links with 65 practice management systems for patient demographic and insurance information. Its laboratory customers include multisite regional reference labs, hospital labs, and in some markets, Quest and LabCorp sites. 4medica’s outreach tool for imaging centers and hospital radiology departments provides integration with imaging ordering and picture archiving and communication systems (PACS). Its inpatient record gives physicians anywhere, anytime access to patient charts with lab results, radiology results, medications, images, and dictated reports.

In its unique e-prescribing solution, 4medica can check for contraindications between medications and patient’s lab values in addition to drug-to-drug and drug-to-allergy checking. The system can even automatically alert clinicians when new test results for patients are contraindicated with their current medications. 4medica’s e-prescribing solution is already certified for patients’ insurance eligibility, plan formularies, and medication histories, and is currently in the certification process for the electronic submission of prescriptions to most chain and community pharmacies.

“Currently, our IHR does not have some of the features of full-blown EHRs or CPOE systems,” said Sharma. “By the end of this year, the IHR will offer most of the modular components necessary to demonstrate meaningful use under the Department of Health and Human Services’ notice of proposed rulemaking. 4medica will partner with other modular certified products for the remaining functionality to make up a complete solution.”

SOURCE 4medica