IPC-The Hospitalist Company has announced the development of a "second generation" of communication technology designed to enhance quality of care and increase medical practice efficiency for in-hospital patients. This new hand-held interactive mobile system will replace the Company's proprietary IPC-LINK(R), already considered the industry's leading communication tool.
When operational, the new technology will streamline the communication flow essential for the daily functions of practicing hospitalists. This system is also being designed to reduce physician paperwork, provide a more accurate and timely billing function and increase efficient data capture in real time. Most importantly, it will provide physicians more the critical depth of information needed when treating a patient; and, because of its efficiency and elimination of duplication efforts, the hospitalist will spend more time directly interacting with the patient. And it will do all of this on a versatile and easy-to-use platform.
The new hardware platform is Hewlett Packard's Jornada 690. It is Windows based with full "modern-day" applications such as "drag and drop" and "point and click." It also carries complete Internet capabilities including Web browser access, calendaring and e-mail.
Concurrently, IPC has announced that it has entered into an agreement with Saber Consulting to program the software and implement the specifications. Saber has begun its work this month with an anticipation of going "live" in September.
Chicago-based Saber Consulting is a leading provider of Oracle solutions for Fortune 100 clients nationwide. They utilize the Oracle8i Lite platform for all of their custom built mobile computing applications, including the one they are building for IPC. Oracle8i is a comprehensive suite of development tools that synchronize remote data with central database servers. It is built upon Oracle Lite DBMS, the world's most powerful lightweight database for mobile devices.
Access to information - and the need for immediate exchange of information - is critical in all areas of patient care, particularly under the hospitalist arrangement. As acute-care specialists who focus on the patient's hospital and/or sub-acute care, hospitalists work in close consultation with the patient's primary care physician and relevant specialists to help case manage the entire inpatient episode of care. Their ability to get necessary information in real time, and to communicate it to all appropriate parties, is essential.
IPC has been at the forefront of the burgeoning hospitalist movement since the Company was founded in 1995. A key ingredient in its success has been its ongoing recognition of the importance of communication technology and its unequalled set of physician workflow automation and practice efficiency tools, known collectively as IPC-LINK(R). Now, the Company is pushing this to the next plateau.
The new platform will synchronize the data held in the hand-held mobile unit with the data housed at IPC's corporate database. Version control and software updates will occur automatically as well, eliminating the need for physical access to the hand-held units. These enhancements provide for unlimited scalability of the system.
"For the first time information will flow in both directions," said Mark Citron, vice president of information systems for IPC. "IPC physicians in the field can upload to our central server and simultaneously receive downloads. This will allow for instant updating of information such as physician names and phone numbers as well as new health plans and formularies. This synchronization also allows for the sharing of active patient lists between physicians who provide call or rounding coverage."
The new system is also being designed to capture information in a more logical and intuitive manner - following a more natural workflow of patients from admission to hospital stay and consultation through discharge. "The tool will be highly adaptive to a physician's work environment," said Citron. "It will be designed to be more intuitive, logical and easier to use."
Achieving this next generation of two-way communication technology is a huge undertaking in terms of time, staff and dollar commitment. Since December, IPC has been engaging many of its physicians across the country to help define and refine the new system. The Company is also upgrading everything that is behind the scenes as well, including the network, servers, security and databases. Citron feels upgrading is a vital component to successful implementation and will continue to be a key differentiation for the Company.
"Capturing essential data, communication with key constituents and maintaining information flow is a challenge all physicians face," said Citron. "A small office or local hospitalist practice simply cannot do this. It's clearly one of the advantages of being part of the IPC family and one of the things which, we believe, will continue to contribute greatly to our success."
[ Home | Contact | MobiChat | Experts database | Let's do it ]
Comments to the content of this page can be posted on the MobiChat discussion group