June 15, 2010
Centricity® Advance: Ahead in the Cloud
Dr. Desiree Butter has always had an interest in technology and its ability to provide easy access to patient information. But it wasn’t until she opened her own practice in 2004 that she was able to make the best use of electronic medical record (EMR) technology.
“If you're low-budget like I am, it makes a big difference,” she says. “I don't have to have a chart room. And it really cuts down on staff hours — everything doesn't have to be filed, or pass through the hands of a staff member. A lot of things I can just access myself.”
A sole practitioner, Dr Butter runs Colonnades Family Medicine, serving approximately 1,600 patients in Wexford, Pennsylvania, and it has been a fully digital operation since the beginning. Dr Butter carries a tablet PC wherever she goes, which gives her full access to a patient’s chart, prescriptions and billing history at a moment’s notice; invaluable when she receives patient phone calls outside the office.
Introducing Centricity Advance
Colonnades Family Medicine is running on Centricity Advance, a web-based EMR solution launched today by GE Healthcare and specifically designed for the smaller physician practice.
Unlike most clinical and financial management solutions, Centricity Advance is a web-based service that costs less than a standard client-server software deployment and is maintained and supported with little or no strain on the healthcare provider’s resources, freeing up more time for patient care.
Ideal as a Web-Based Service
The fact that Centricity Advance was designed from the ground up as a web service is significant. Instead of simply providing web-based gateway into a standard EMR application, the Centricity Advance is created with anywhere/anytime access in mind, resulting in an intuitive and efficient interface without sacrificing functionality. Since system management is centralized as part of the Centricity Advance service, small practices don’t have to worry about data protection, updates, equipment failures and other typically stressful responsibilities of user-driven IT management.
Another key feature of Centricity Advance is the Patient Self-Service Portal, which connects patients to their care. By using their own secure password to log in, patients can communicate privately with their doctor and view their own information such as statements, prescriptions and lab results. Patients can also request and confirm appointments, request prescription refills and get automatic reminders for immunizations and lab tests.
“They are going to love it!” she says. “The majority likes to have lab results — actual copies. I like them to have their numbers too. The more my practice develops, the better the product gets. It is probably ahead of me in terms of growth and functionality.”
