CureMD’s Discrete Reportable Transcription (DRT) Enabled EHR Wins Huge Praise at HIMSS 2010

ATLANTA: CureMD’s exclusive DRT – enabled integrated EHR wins huge praise at HIMSS 2010 from participants as more and more providers realize the value that DRT can bring to the meaningful use of EHR. DRT has turned out to be a solution that effectively addresses EHR usability issues reducing time spent documenting patient encounters, consults and assessments by supporting narrative dictation with results directly delivered into the EHR.

Continuing its tradition of innovating new ways for physicians to drive outcomes with new technologies, CureMD introduced World’s first DRT enabled EHR in 2008 taking EHR adoption to the next level. Since then thousands of physicians are benefiting from this innovation as they dictate their findings and clinical assessments in their own words, and the transcribed output is entered directly into CureMD EHR as discreet recordable data overnight.

Seeing CureMD, the World’s first DRT –enabled EHR in action during its demonstration at HIMSS 2010, providers were amazed with its capabilities and how it saves time, money and effort. Using the CureMD DRT technology, physicians do not have to change the way they practice medicine or the manner in which they interact with patients.

“CureMD DRT –enabled EHR clearly stands out from the other EHR systems I have seen at HIMSS," said Tina Thornhill, MD after attending DRT demonstration at CureMD booth. "CureMD massively impressed me with both its comprehensive technology offering and pure Web architecture coupled with innovative services like DRT. I felt CureMD can steer my practice rapidly towards Meaningful Use while helping achieve my objectives for improving quality, safety and efficiency of patient care."

"One of the major objectives of CureMD DRT –enabled EHR has been to empower physicians to more effectively utilize EHR as it can contribute dramatically to improve adoption and facilitate Meaningful Use of advanced information systems that would enhance their position as leaders in their respective fields and further support clinical excellence”, said Kamal Hashmat, CEO of CureMD Corp.

In a study by AC Group involving 573 patient charts, DRT-enabled EHR averaged 30 minutes per day in clinician documentation time while standard EHR data entry took 140 minutes per day. The monetary cost to a clinician with average earnings of $100 per hour would be approximately $180 per day or $4,000 per month. In a New England Journal of Medicine publication, Off the Record – Avoiding the Pitfalls of Going Electronic, the article notes that template-based documentation may distract from the important cognitive work of providing care, limiting thoughtful review and analysis. “Although completing such templates may help physicians survive a report-card review, it directs them to ask restrictive questions rather than engaging in a narrative-based, open-ended dialogue."

This way, the cost for the creation of the final note is cut by more than 50%—an average of $6,000 annually per physician who has elected dictation over handwritten notes. More importantly, the transcription comes back into the EHR as discreet clinical findings, thereby improving clinical documentation, coding, and outcomes. CureMD DRT-enabled EHR allows physicians who have elected to dictate in the past to continue this practice while cutting their transcription costs in half and generating a clinical note via the EHR.

The resulting findings of the AC Group study on DRT-enabled EHR documentation:

• 38% reduction in transcription costs initially
• Transcription costs on follow-up visits decreased by 82%
• No change from traditional practices in interaction with patient
• Ability to capture discrete data using transcription
• Populate EHR via dictation instead of physician data entry
• 80% of discrete data with 18% of the effort
• Documented encounters capture the complete, cognitive analysis of clinicians instead of by one-size-fits-all templates

Using this novel method of data entry, physicians can use EHR without having to perform any data entry. Although the concept of a DRT-enabled EHR is quite new, numerous physician focus groups have shown that a high percentage of physicians (87%) are extremely interested in the DRT-enabled EHR concept; thus, it is an answer to boosting adoption rates.

DRT affords clinicians more time and intimacy for quality patient care, leaving the clerical work for a trained EHR transcription staff. DRT also allows physicians to use their preferred method of clinical documentation and reduces time spent documenting encounters. It ensures better patient care by allowing a clinician to practice using their natural method of working and increases accuracy with a proven dictation-transcription process by allowing Medical Transcriptionists to be a “second set of eyes.”

About HIMSS
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is a comprehensive healthcare-stakeholder membership organization exclusively focused on providing global leadership for the optimal use of information technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of healthcare.