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Going Solo Made Easier
November 1, 2007
Being a solo practitioner isn't easy. And when you decide to open up your practice in one of the poorest cities in the country, it can be even more difficult.
That's why Jeffrey Brenner, M.D., didn't think he had a choice when it came to electronic health records. "I decided to go with one right off the bat," says the solo practitioner at Camden (N.J.) Family Medicine, which opened about three years ago. "I recognized that an EHR creates a lot of efficiencies and can reduce overhead in a primary care practice."
Brenner determined that the software would enable him to hire a smaller staff, because he wouldn't need help chasing down paper documents. "I would have ended up with a stack of charts on my desk every day with questions that I would need to answer," he says. "It would become a limit on how many bodies I could get through the door." More than 50% of Brenner's patients are on Medicaid. "Since we're a Medicaid practice, you have to do a lot of volume and you don't have time to prepare a lot of paperwork," he says.
Brenner has a physician's assistant, a medical assistant, a receptionist and an office manager on staff. Because he uses an EHR, Brenner is able to treat about 30 patients each day and document their treatment immediately. If he were using paper charts, Brenner says he would end up spending considerable time after each visit completing notes, which means he'd see far fewer patients.
But choosing an EHR wasn't easy. One of the major requirements for Brenner was that the system be intuitive to use. This requirement led him to Houston-based Spring Medical Systems Inc. and its SpringCharts EMR.
But it wasn't his first EHR. Brenner initially spent $5,000 on a product built for a specialist, not a primary care physician, and he and his staff didn't find it easy to use. "I'm fairly tech savvy and I couldn't figure out how to make it work," he says. "I need a product my staff can understand without much training."
The vendor said Brenner needed more training on the software, but he didn't think that was the case. He says the software was unnecessarily complex. "If you need to open a manual there's a problem," he says.
Brenner liked SpringCharts better from the start. One of the big drawing points was that the company let him test-drive the software on his own. Other vendors wouldn't let Brenner use the software without a salesperson present. He tested the software for a day and also had his medical assistant and two administrative personnel try it out. "The genius of the product is that it has a simple interface," he says. "It's designed to work in an environment where the doctor is documenting very quickly. My staff and I were able to figure it out pretty easily."
Multiple Platform Support
One of the other requirements Brenner had was that the software run on both Microsoft Windows and Apple's operating system, Brenner says. SpringCharts is written in Java and can be run on any platform.
Brenner has a wireless network in his office and hosts the software on a Mac mini, a small personal computer from Apple Inc. He didn't want to get a server because his office has been broken into and he didn't want to risk having it stolen. The Mac mini is behind some books and chained to the shelves in one of the offices, out of sight and reach. After purchasing the system, Brenner began using it in phases. The first two weeks he just did messaging with his staff.
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