| Review: Allscripts HealthMatics EHR |
 |
| Written by Karen Corey | ||||||||
| Monday, 12 May 2008 09:30 | ||||||||
 Allscripts HealthMatics EHR (http://www.allscripts.com ) is a versatile solution for small and mid-sized physician practices who want to improve their clinical and administrative processes. This application is a customizable and easy-to-use solution for handling all your Electronic Health Record needs, whether you have a family practice or are a multi-specialty facility.
In Use The HealthMatics EHR is a multi-module system which handles all major specialties in one application. It has a built in knowledge base for each specialty, and each physician in the practice can create specific assessment, plan, and physical exam templates. Besides giving you the tools to handle all aspects of electronic health records, it can easily generate professional and complete consult letters with its Output Manager function. The HealthMatics EHR has multi-user capabilities and is very easy to use. The screens and menus are designed to be used by anyone, and are self-explanatory. One great feature is that this software is customizable for each physician, no matter their specialty. Technology employed Allscripts provides on site consultation and setup. They will work with you to purchase and install the system in your medical practice. They work with all major vendors such as; Dell, Fujiitsu, Hewlett Packard and Cisco Systems. They can provide you with any hardware needed, and can even make your setup wireless. The software is web-based and can be accessed remotely. Ease of use, configuration, and deployment HealthMatics is easy to use and is accessible both within the office and remotely. This system will work with your current practice management and LIS systems. The entire system is set up and installed in you medical practice, and on site training is also given to ensure you can operate your application seamlessly. The software itself is very user friendly and has many time-saving tools and functions. Recap Allscripts HealthMatics is a solution to handling all of your electronic health records needs. The system is easy to customize and works for both primary care and specialty practices. It has a comprehensive knowledge base on 16 specialties which can be used by all users. This system will help you improve workflow and staff communication and will streamline your small to mid-size practices’ electronic health records. Since each individual practice has different requirements and needs, pricing varies depending on hardware and licensing. Advantages
Disadvantages
My Opinion The HealthMatics system is well thought out and offers the best design for ease of use I’ve seen so far. The customer support and specialty knowledge bases are exceptional. This entire application has a nice layout with many built-in tools to save you time. This is the perfect solution for multi- specialty physicians and primary care practices. | ||||||||
|
About the Author: Jeff Merron is a full-time freelance editor, journalist, and copywriter who has written for the New York Times Magazine, ESPN.com, Slate, Byte Magazine, Macworld, Consumers Digest, and many other national publications. He's also a regular contributor to IT Business Insider and 108, a baseball magazine. He has a Ph.D. in Mass Communication Research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
|
Implementation staff was very poor. We had to have a repeat implementation visit 3 months after the initial due to lack of proper training.
Hardware issues were constant. We tried to use the Signature Add-on, with hardware of exact specs recommended by Allscripts. They were unable to ever get this to work properly. Therefore, I have a unit that is useless.
Fax software never worked. This was the deal killer. After spending 9 months customizing my modules, my office staff could not receive faxes. Therefore, we would receive electronic faxes on one computer, had to print them out and scan into the EHR. No direct input from fax.
The Remote solution is not provided by Allscripts, but eTransmedia. This remote source was frequently "down." 5-10 minutes a week doesn't seem a lot until your charts back up. Additionally, if you scan or print, then this data spools from your desktop to their server and then back to your scanner/printer. Initial installation did not take this into account. We had print times of single-page docs as long as 3-5 minutes. Scanning was all but impossible. They had apparently never considered this prior to my office installation. It took a couple months to resolve.
My dissatisfaction hit a peak during depositions for work comp cases or similar. My records were boiler plate. Since I am not a transcriptionist, I am not going to spend my clinical time typing patient notes myself (still cheaper to pay a transcriptionist even though you can say with sweat equity you saved $800/month in transcription). I tried Dragon 10, but it was buggy with the Allscripts system. It wouldn't recognize edit commands after the note was dictated. FRUSTRATING!
Upon my wholehearted attempt to make this system work, it didn't. The support and understanding from Allscripts was nil. eTransmedia told me it was Allscripts fault and vice versa. I was unable to get a refund, credit, or ANY acknowledgement of my problem. I would recommend close scrutiny of your agreement with this company.
Incidentally, I have returned to my Allscripts Electronic Documentation (aka Impact MD) and ePrescribe without issues. In fact, the tech support is phenomenal with this product. Hard to believe it's the same company.