From AAO: "Meaningful Use"

Dr. White was busy over the weekend! We'll spread his thoughts and experiences out over the next few days:


"Every convention is always filled with surprises. The not-so-good one this year was learning as we were all arriving that Medicare would be drastically reducing what it pays for patients to enjoy the miraculous effects of cataract surgery. That's really a bummer because it is the first effort to discover how low medical insurance can go before doctors stop treating patients because of cost.

Good surprises happen, too! I was visiting the company that makes our Electronic Medical Record (EMR), a company called SRS Software. SRS is a great company that has built an EMR around a very simple, but very important idea: an EMR should not interfere with the Doctor/Patient relationship. Radical stuff, huh? The SRS software allows doctors to continue to use whatever type of patient flow they have always enjoyed without adding all kinds of time to both the visit and the doctor's administrative burdens.

There is a government requirement that all EMR's demonstrate "Meaningful Use", a term that is defined in Washington by people who do not practice medicine. In its first few versions Meaningful Use was going to be a terrible burden on doctors and their practices, especially specialists like eye doctors. Through the efforts of SRS and other companies the final rules are somewhat less of a burden in general, but without creative thinking on the part of the makers of the EMR software it still looked like it was going to make things harder and slower in the office. Everything still pointed to a new paperwork hassle for docs and patients.

Here's where the pleasant surprise comes in: SRS stuck to their core philosophy and engineered a solution that looks like a winner! I was stunned when it was demonstrated to me. What looked like it would take at least an extra 10-15:00 for every patient every time they came in now looks like a one-time 5:00 entry and just a couple minutes each time thereafter. Believe me, knowing how good all to the staff at SkyVision is, and how much they care about providing a great experience for every patient, I just know they are going to make it look like "normal" in a very short time!

This is really fantastic news, and it was a really pleasant surprise, too! Stand by for SkyVision Centers to become fully on-board with Meaningful Use thanks to the fantastic work of everyone at SRS Software."


That sounds like something to get excited about!