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As physicians face the challenge of adopting computer/software-based systems to manage and support their practices and patient care, these physicians are becoming major users of technology. The software systems manage every aspect of the patient's care from medical records, prescriptions, appointments, to insurance claims processing, patient billing and critical practice financial reporting. The proper use, performance and availability of these systems gives the physicians a great opportunity to focus their efforts and time on quality patient care, improve their bottom line and reduces the staff workload.
JDA understands the opportunity physician practices have to take advantage of this technology and has created a service offering focused on physician practices. JDA's physician support services is a packaged IT services offering that provides physicians with the IT related support to ensure they can easily implement a Electronic Practice Management (EPM) solution and/or an Electronic Health-Medical Records (EHR/EMR) solution in their practice without having to become experts in the IT or networking arena. Based on the dependence the practice will have on these EPM and EHR systems, it is equivalent to what in the business world would be called a business or mission critical system. If the systems do not perform or aren't available and can't be accessed either locally or remotely, then the practice cannot sign in, register patients, view the patient history, write prescriptions, update the patient care records or the patient data base, etc. With JDA services, all the underlying IT systems, networking, file backups, systems maintenance, updates, virus protection, etc., are all in place and based on standards that are KLAS and CCHIT compliant, therefore the physician does not need to be concerned about compliance issues. Physician's who use our services are focused on patient care and have peace of mind knowing their IT-related support is being provided by a company with a background of more than 30 years of healthcare industry experience.
Who—John Drake &Associates—a leading IT services company led by lifelong successful IT professionals with a commitment to providing high quality IT care.
What—We have packaged our IT services for physician practices. We've taken what we have learned in supporting the complex IT environments found in financial institutions, global trading firms, global healthcare corporations and Hi-tech manufacturing firms all of whom we have supported for years, and combined that knowledge and experience to provide predefined IT support for physician practices to ensure the performance, availability, network access and consistent reliability of EPM and EHR systems your practice and patients will now depend on.
When—Now! The federal government has set aside $20 billion of the 2009 Stimulus Plan for the HITECH ACT (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health). The funding is available in various ways, but all are directly tied to the implementation and use EHR systems. The sooner you implement your EHR system, the sooner you can collect your share of the $20 billion in funding. A large percentage of the funding is targeted to be paid out between 2011 and 2016, with the largest amounts in 2011 and declining amounts each year thereafter down to 2016.
But given the operational efficiencies gained by these EHR systems as well as a better ability to capture all your reimbursement opportunity related to the procedures you perform on behalf of your patients day after day, you are also incented to move forward sooner rather than later. The sooner you move forward with your EHR implementation, the sooner you benefit your bottom line.
With JDA's services, we are positioned to begin working with you immediately to implement your systems and make sure you have a successful roll-out.
Where—Our data center, the Internet and your practice location(s)—The critical, computing systems will be hosted in our data center. Our network security solution will allow you to cost effectively and securely leverage the Internet and your workstations and or laptops/tablets and printers will reside at your practice location. By having the servers and major network devices located in our data center, we can leverage our shared computing environment to ensure a secured and cost effective platform for your systems. We can also better manage system updates, maintenance, virus protections, etc… along with regular backups and file restores as needed. Your systems will be housed in a centrally managed data center with redundant, power, cooling, multiple and geographically dispersed Internet connections, along with physical and logical security for the facility and your systems.
Why—Your practice and patients will depend on these systems. While there are tremendous gains to your practice to be had from these EPM and EHR systems, you will be wholly dependent on them as well. If they aren't available or performing as needed, you are essentially out of business. You don't need overbuilt and over-architected, IT systems, nor do you need under resourced/supported systems. You need IT services and support for those systems that leverage IT industry standards and best practices for maintenance, monitoring and documented support procedures. We have positioned JDA to provide physicians practices with the optimal support for your IT dollar. Our business success depends on long term relationships, so we know we have to earn your trust and confidence in this highly competitive marketplace. We have built our physician services offering to earn that trust, today and over the long term.
How—We have teamed with PPS to provide a complete business and IT solution for Physician practices. PPS has the EPM and EHR application knowledge needed to assist you in making the right decisions about what systems to choose for your practice. They also have the experience and knowledge to assist you in the implementation and training for your staff on these new systems, this is a key step to ensure success. By teaming with PPS, we have combined JDA's 30+ years of experience in providing IT solutions to meet business needs with PPS's years of experience working in and with physician practices to improve their patient satisfaction and increase their profitability. Based on the work we have already done with PPS, we established the following time line to show you the steps from the initial discussions to the final roll-out of these systems.
• Establish Practice Objectives for the EHR/EMR—Week 1
° Improve workflow for physicians and staff
° Quality Care tracking
° Effective capture and reconciliation of services
° Improve interoffice communication with patients and pharmacies
° Control staff expense
° Interfaced communication with hospitals and ancillary service providers
° Reporting capability to participate in payer incentive programs
• Identify and Review EHR/EMR options—Weeks 2 & 3
° Ease of EHR use
° Technical capabilities related to patient care : see handout
° Integrity of Practice Management and Accounts Receivable
° Training and Post Go-Live Support
° Reporting capabilities
° Participate in Demos
° Obtain current User feedback and possible on-site visit of systems you are interested in
° Review CCHIT certification, insist on written assurance EMR vendor will be responsible for upgrades to ensure
CMS compliance
• Determine EMR System Requirements—Week 4 & 5
° Hardware & Network Platforms
° Operating Systems, 3rd Party Software Requirements
° Availability Requirements
° Access / Security Requirements
° Support - Implementation and Ongoing Needs
> Servers, Network, Desktops (Laptops, Tablets)
° Backup / Recovery Processes
• Hosted, ASP or In-house—Week 5 & 6
° This is the timeframe where you need to decide and commit to a direction for how your systems will be supported.
° Your Practice will depend on these systems. You'll need to consider how your systems will be housed, supported and
maintained—Hosted, ASP or In-house. Any of these options for supporting your systems is viable. It's a matter of how
involved you want to be (or are able to be) in supporting, maintaining and trouble-shooting your servers, network,
workstations, backups, the access and security for your systems.
° Hosted - Your involvement in the implementation and ongoing support is minimal
> An IT services company who provides hosting services, can be responsible for hosting your workload in a secured
data center environment with redundant, power, cooling and 24 x 7 monitoring and management of your environment.
° Application Service Provider (ASP) - Your involvement in the implementation and ongoing support is minimal
> An ASP company will host a software application (like an EMR system) on its own servers within its own facilities. They
provide access and the use of the software to multiple clients and based on the leverage using a common environment
to support multiple clients, they can provide the use of the software at a lower cost per user (compared to a hosted and
in-house solution). The other aspect of this kind of shared environment, is that all users must conform to the standards
and configuration of the common environment. This kind of solution does not allow for unique configuring of the
application based on unique client requirements. As long as your Practice can conform to the standards and software
setup of the ASP services provider, this kind of option can be very viable.
° In-House - Your involvement in the implementation and ongoing support is high
> Some practices will make a decision to host and manage their EPM or EMR systems in their own offices. These decisions
can work effectively, but will require knowledge of the servers, network and security for the systems supporting your practice.
There will be upfront time and focus to ensure the environment is built and implemented correctly. There will also be
ongoing and routine maintenance activities aside from regular backups and file restores as needed. There will be regular
operating systems updates, software fixes and security updates that will need to be reviewed, tested and implemented.
If the right level of IT technical expertise exists within your practice, the support and management of the in-house
environment can be accomplished. The key to success for this option is to have a technical resource in-house who
has the required expertise and is available 24 x 7 to support your business critical environment.
• Negotiate Pricing—Week 6
° EHR/EMR Vendor
> Licensing and ongoing maintenance costs
° "Get Ready" Costs
> Training on EHR/EMR
> Data migration
> ASP vs. Hosted Option
° Hardware, Software, Network costs
° Implementation
> Ongoing support costs
° EHR/EMR and Systems Support; mission critical system requires ongoing support
° Additional costs for dictionaries, upgrades, etc.
° Interface costs
° System claim edits
° Real Time Eligibility Claim and Statement production
• Build / Establish Environment—Weeks 7 & 8
° For hosted solutions, confirm timeframes to test office and remote access
° Don't go live until you have had 2 dress rehearsals
° Communicate to your patients, asking for their patience as you implement a new system to better provide for
their well-being
• Implement—Week 9
° Staff Training
° Layout acceptance testing in advance
° Validate data and run parallel
• Transition—Week 10
° Data Migration Completed
° User Training Completed
° User Testing Completed
• Ongoing Support—Week 11 and Ongoing
° EHR/EMR system updates
° Additional EHR/EMR interfaces as needed
° Security, OS and Virus updates for underlying systems
° Management of backups and file recoveries
° System refresh plans as needed
° Trouble-shooting and technical / access / performance / connectivity / printing issues
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