Becker's ASC Review

34 functionality should be. The two most important pieces Capital Digestive Care was seeking in an EHR system were: Easy interface with practice management systems, laboratories, hospitals and endoscopy centers Interoperability so it was simple for physicians to use regardless of where they were practicing. Dr. Weinstein said gastroenterologists spend up to 50 percent of their time at endoscopy centers. He said, "The seamless flow of information to and from the office and endoscopy suite is critical to clinical care and achieving maximal EHR efficiency." In his experience, EHR inefficiencies are most evident when there are issues with the interface. After the initial pitching process, the Capital Digestive Care EHR se- lection team traveled to four practices to see their final candidates in use. The options were gMed, a Modernizing Medicine Co.'s gGastro and three others. Then the road trip began. The team went to Minneapolis, Rockford, Ill., Denver and York, Pa., to see the systems in action. Dr. Weinstein met with IT managers, physi- cians and superusers at each location. The team witnessed the EHRs in use and got down to the brass tacks with people using the systems in an everyday environment. "After that we decided on gMed," he said. "One of the reasons [be- hind that] was because in a GI practice you need a three legged stool with your EHR. You [need to have] your billing and collections, your office records and your endoscopic system. … gMed has all that in a seamless interface. With that in mind we decided to do gGastro in the office and throughout all of our endoscopy centers." The change has been well-received and like all gMed users, Capital Digestive Care can call a company representative when a problem arises. However, Dr. Weinstein said by having the entire practice on the same EHR system, there have been next to no interface or vendor issues. While gMed may not be as robust as some of the other options the group considered, the integration between each "leg of the stool" more than makes up for that, he said. And the physicians like the system too. The gGastro system allows for several points of customization, including for note taking. gGastro allows physicians to dictate notes, use voice to text, type, use a scribe or even use automated ribbons for note taking. Dr. Weinstein said, "We didn't have to drive everybody to do the same thing, we could allow the physicians to have some flexibility and they were happy." As an added perk, the gGastro system has several administrative friendly customization options. For example, in healthcare there are multiple different ways to say the word "big." An administrator can go into gMed and restrict the vast terminology to the same throughout the entire system. By limiting the number of ways a physician can describe a large anomaly to one, gGastro creates a set of mineable analytics. The hardest part, Dr. Weinstein joked, is getting the physi- cians to agree to just one term. Since the implementation Since Capital Digestive Care implemented gMed, the practice has made a number of improvements to upgrade their gGastro experi- ence. When Capital Digestive Care first rolled out gGastro across its several Maryland and Washington, D.C.-based locations the system was being hosted on an offsite server farm, leading to the occasional outage. As Capital Digestive Care's servers were nearing the end of their lifespan, the group was faced with another decision: spend a consid- erable amount of money purchasing new servers or pivot to gMed's cloud-based servers. "We decided to move to the cloud," Dr. Weinstein said. "It's helped a lot. We've had minutes of downtime, if that. When we were on our own servers there were always disruptions. Now that everyone is on the cloud, everything is on Modernizing Medicine. If there's a prob- lem, we only have to make one phone call. I can tell you we haven't had to call. It's worked better since we were on the cloud." Now that Capital Digestive Care is on the cloud, scalability was made effortless. Where before the group would have to weigh expansion with an eye to infrastructure, today the EHR is completely scalable and practices can be added simply by reaching out to gMed. As an administrator and a physician, Dr. Weinstein has had ample experience with both sides of gMed's gGastro system. From the interconnectedness of its report writer to the workable metrics and customization of its practice management system, one aspect stands out to him: the fact that the system is specifically for GI. "If you look at other multispecialty systems you see things that have no relevance to GI and it's harder to lock them out," Dr. Weinstein said. "You have pages that are encumbered by medical information that is of no use to a gastroenterologist. In that respect that custom- ization for GI makes the notes more efficient for us. I can get every- thing I need on a single screen without having to dismiss information or scroll." n 3 experts share their thoughts on the right EHR for gastroenterologists Written by Eric Oliver W ith multiple electronic health records system options in the marketplace, those seeking a new system have an interesting choice since each vendor and solution brings something unique to the table. Plus, practices in different stages look for different things — with some switching from old systems, to some just starting up and others finally moving off paper. is content is sponsored by gMed, A Modernizing Medicine Company. Becker's ASC Review spoke to several users in different situations about the system they selected, and one system stood out — gGastro®, the GI-specific suite from gMed®, a Modernizing Medicine® company. e right EHR for practices switching technology omas D. Punteney, Chief Operating Officer of Charleston (S.C.) GI Specialists, manages operations for three offices and two surgery centers with 11 providers on staff. Charleston GI Specialists

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