The Wayne State University Physician Group has selected NextGen Electronic Medical Records from Horsham, Pa.-based NextGen Healthcare Information Systems. By using NextGen EMR, the Wayne State University Physician Group will be able to improve quality, enhance patient safety and increase revenues through efficient and secure access to patient information at the point of care.
"With 19 individual practices and 22 different specialties, it was critical for us to find an EMR that could be easily customized to meet the needs of all our physicians," said Stephen DeSilva, M.D., president of the Wayne State University Physician Group. "NextGen EMR's thin client architecture and flexible templates allow each specialty or sub-specialty to practice medicine their own way while also supporting shared access to patient data."
NextGen's template-based system enables physicians to utilize drop-down lists and check boxes and buttons to speed the data entry process during patient encounters. Through the use of the system's template editor, the Wayne State University Physician Group can quickly and cost-effectively make changes to templates, such as adding new fields, alerts, screens and clinical pathways, to complement the way its physicians practice medicine.
Additional features include the NextGen EMR medications module, which checks new prescriptions against a patient's medication list and allergies to help prevent interactions and medication errors. Once checking is complete, prescriptions are quickly generated and printed at the checkout counter or faxed directly to the pharmacy. Access to this module will enable the Wayne State University Physician Group to participate in the Southeast Michigan e-Prescribing Initiative (SEMI), a major quality initiative aimed at addressing medication errors and the subsequent effect on health care quality and costs. The Group is also positioned to take advantage of national and statewide pay-for-performance programs.
NextGen EMR incorporates a number of security mechanisms to prevent unauthorized access to records and to maintain legal integrity. Linked to user preferences and security data, virtually all data maintained by the system is stamped with the user's identification and the date and time.
"We are also very impressed that the NextGen system can seamlessly interface with our existing IDX practice management system and our hospital partner's information systems," added DeSilva.