Technology That Can Change The Face of Medicine

Health care is one of the top priorities of President Barack Obama's administration, and solution providers are in the mix, coming up with innovative solutions to help streamline the practice of medicine. ScriptRx, a West Palm Beach, Fla., provider of interactive health-care systems for emergency departments and hospital administrations, developed an electronic patient discharge system for walk-in ambulatory care environments.



The solution provider chose Planar PT resistive touch screens for the project. To date, the ScriptRx system with Planar PT touch screens has been adopted by more than 5,000 practitioners in more than 200 facilities across 32 states.

Doctors can be resistant to electronic records systems, which may differ from their typical workflows and diagnostic procedures. Training on the computer system takes time away from patients and if the system is down, patient care and satisfaction can be impacted. The challenge for ScriptRx was to convince doctors to use the system and show a clear advantage over the pen-and-paper format with which doctors are familiar.

The ScriptRx program is loaded onto a new or existing PC in the clinic, along with a Planar PT resistive touch-screen monitor. The physician or nurse practitioner meeting with a patient can use the touch-screen interface to efficiently access online medical reference and drug interaction information, create detailed discharge instructions and write prescriptions and follow-up orders. Because handwritten instructions or prescriptions can be misunderstood, the directed choices offered by the touch-screen system help to reduce errors.

Dr. Timothy Coffield, president and CEO of ScriptRx, has ensured the system is easy to use. The system includes a biometric fingerprint scanner to give each practitioner quick, secure access. One customer of the ScriptRx/Planar solution is the Arcadia Urgent Care center in Phoenix. The touch-screen interface of the ScriptRx system intuitively mirrors the work flow and thought process of the urgent care practitioner, as urgent care is a linear process of patient history, diagnosis and discharge.

Touch screens have a number of advantages over traditional screens, particularly in markets moving from paper to electronic records. They can:





-- Improve productivity by simplifying and automating processes;



-- Reduce errors with specific, directed options and guided choices;





-- Engage users with interactive screens and colorful graphics.





According to the Rand Corp., the application of information technology in the health-care sector could result in annual savings of $77 billion or more from efficiency alone, not counting the economic benefits of reducing medical errors and improving patient services.