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20 Executive Briefing Sponsored by: 7 Ways gMed's Endoscopy Report Writer Improves Efficiency and Patient Care G ermantown, Tenn.-based Gastro One embarked on the journey to be able to digitize its patients' medical records and more efficiently gather patient data about the same time as gMed, a Modernizing Medicine company, was setting out to create gastroenterology-specific software to improve efficiency and outcomes for gastroenterologists. To- day, Gastro One, which now includes 33 physicians and three endoscopy centers after its merger with Memphis Gastroen- terology Group in July of 2014, is proud to call itself one of the first adopters of gMed's solution, gGastro. That's partly because gGastro has become the award- winning gastroenterology-specific electronic health records (EHR) system that includes a patient portal, practice man- agement solution, data exchange application and Endos- copy Report Writer (ERW). "When all the physicians met together as we were discuss- ing the merger between the practices, we decided to go with gMed's gGastro suite of products because it's so intuitive and follows the way doctors think," says Richard Aycock, MD, se- nior vice president of Gastro One. "There are a lot of subtleties in it for customization, but it's repetitive and gives you a high- quality note without requiring a long learning curve." According to the Centers for Disease Control and Preven- tion (CDC), in 2015, 86.9 percent of office-based physicians used an EHR system, and the majority at that time had ap- plied or planned to apply for Medicare and Medicaid EHR incentive programs. Solo practitioners had a lower EHR adoption rate, at 64 percent, compared with 70 percent among medical and surgical specialists. As an early adopt- er of EHR and electronic data gathering software, Gastro One physicians have experience with several systems and watched them evolve through the years. "In our area, we deal with multiple different endoscopy writer systems because we do a lot of work at different hospitals that are all on different systems," says Dr. Aycock. "I'm very versed in the different endoscopy writer programs and I can tell you from an efficiency standpoint, nothing comes close to gMed's Endoscopy Report Writer." The EHR generates detailed procedure reports and is de- signed to streamline the documentation process. The solution includes procedure notes, referring physician letters and dis- charge notes and fully integrates with the company's EHR and Nursing Notes to automatically update data between offices, ASCs and hospital information systems. The platform has another key differentiator that makes it pref- erable for physicians. Many endoscopy writer systems on the market today take the "ribbon approach" that requires physi- cians to navigate through their report by clicking on one polyp at a time to see the images; gMed's Endoscopy Report Writer includes all of the polyps available on a single screen and the images integrate into the report. "The ribbon method is cumbersome and slows us down," says Dr. Aycock. "The EHR puts all the information in front of you. It's extremely seamless and integrates with the gGastro suite of products. All the background information built in ICD-10 codes with the specific polyp locations are automated so the physician doesn't have to re-enter data." Nationwide, gMed's solutions are operating in approximately 400 practices and used by more than 3,200 physicians nation- wide in practices, ASCs and hospitals. The system also con- nects to the GI Quality Improvement Consortium registry and has become one of the largest specialty EHR companies in the United States. Here are seven ways gMed's gGastro technol- ogy may benefit gastroenterology centers. 1. Quality reporting compliance. gMed's GIQuIC is an ap- proved registry for CMS' Physician Quality Reporting System, Merit-based Incentive Payment System and the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, which ensures physicians and practices are compliant with data reporting in each program. The company's gGastro EHR has been Mean- ingful Use certified annually since 2011. "We have met PQRS and Meaningful Use along the way based on the Endoscopy Report Writer and GIQuIC data," says Dr. Aycock. "We are dependent on the endoscopy writer for all this." "I'm very versed in the different endoscopy writer programs and I can tell you from an efficiency standpoint, nothing comes close to gMed's Endoscopy Report Writer." — Dr. Richard Aycock, Senior Vice President of Gastro One

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