MedOffIS UPDATE FOR 2003

2002.12.01

Overview

Since the inception of MedOffIS in 1990, significant updates have been implemented approximately every 2 years. The last major update was in the Spring of 2001. Another update will be ready for distribution in February/March 2003. This update will be substantial and will include a new Dataflex runtime (ver 3.2) which makes MOIS a 32 bit application compatable with all Windows operating systems including XP Professional. It also allows printing to newer printers which do not support a native character set. MedOffIS will still have it's old character based look and feel and will still be fast on older computers or dial up connections. The update contains many enhancements in all areas of billing, scheduling and the electronic medical record.

Some Update Features

Some of the new features include but are not limited to the following:

1.     Default diagnosis code can be applied to any fee in the schedule (eg 30B for first and followup prenatal fee codes)

2.     Minimum and maximum age ranges can be applied to any fee code with alternate fee code specification for ages less or greater than the specified range. This provides full support for multiple age range fee codes

3.     Requirement for combinations of start and finish times can be applied to any fee code.

4.     Billing for services supplied by multiple physicians to the same patient can be done without changing the desktop doctor

5.     Non MSP registered practitioners can be booked but bills applied to registered (alias) practitioner (useful in settings where residents see patients)

6.     New methodology for private billing allows application of single payment to multiple services and reports of billings, payments, adjustments and writeoff's by activity date

7.     New reports for querying the health record (eg list specified laboratory tests for a date range, list prescriptions by drug name or portion of drug name (eg "STATIN") for any date range)

8.     Physiotherapy and Chiropractic electronic WCB reporting in addition to physician WCB reporting

9.     All reports print to screen before being optionally directed to the printer and can be imported into any editor/word processor

10. New windows for listing "Social History" and "Interventions". The latter are picked from a selection list (for consistency in later queries) and include "Breast Exam", "Vaccination - Influenza", and "Digital Rectal Exam"

11. "Sensitivity" indicator so that selected Problem or Social History entries won't print.

12. Size of text area doubled in most Windows to accommodate scanning and optical character recognition of full reports

13. Last modification date and user name applied to most text areas in addition to that already applied to progress notes

14. Chart numbers can be applied to family history entries to construct list of family members at same time as recording family medical history

15. Medication selection list updated to July, 2002 Canadian Drug Index. Global selection list and selection list limited to Pharmacare covered drugs (or user specified formulary)

16. New popup view of prescriptions sorted by medication name and then date so the history of prescriptions given for each drug can be easily viewed/searched (useful for long time MOIS users who now have more than 50,000 prescription entries)

17. New label formats

18. Enhancements to internal message centre

19.  Referral letter and requisition history text areas added to consults and imaging windows respectively

20.  Changes in data base structure to allow later development of ordering system for referrals, imaging and laboratory investigation. This will allow query of unresulted investigations, sign off of resulted investigations and generation of all requitions/referral by the EMR

Procedure for Obtaining Update

It has always been the policy of Medical Office Information Systems that updates must be installed at the time they are offered in order to receive ongoing support. Maintaining a potpourri of sites with different software and database structure is too difficult to manage with reasonable support costs. Also, nearly all updates contain changes necessary for compatibility with MSP and / or WCB requirements. In the past, updates were installed on short notice without difficulty. However, in order to avoid situations where updates are applied where they are not wanted, this update will be installed on advance request by the user only. Please advise by mail, e-mail or telephone (contact information on summary page). Requests for updates received after June 30, 2003 will be subject to a premium as specified in the price structure below

Pricing

The Dataflex ver 3.2 Runtime License costs about $350.00 after conversion to Canadian dollars. The multiuser edition is now the same price as the single user edition so all users will have the capability to network up to 4 workstations without having to obtain extra licensing from DataAccess Corporation. To account for my time in programming the changes and installing the update / new runtime license, the total cost of the upgrade and 4 user runtime license to all users will be $800.00 + GST. This amount and an additional charge of $200.00 + GST will be payable if an upgrade or support is requested after June 30, 2003. Further charges at $100.00 per hour may also be necessary for complications arising from delaying "routine maintenance". Additional blocks of 4 user runtime licenses can be installed for $350.00 + GST. Installation of MedOffIS on newly added network workstations continues to be $250.00 + GST per workstation.

Future Enhancements

Work is in progress for a web based interface with Teleplan. This is more than 1/2 done and will be in place sometime in 2003. About 1/3 of MedOffIS has been converted to a Windows GUI application using DataAccess Visual Dataflex. This application will use exactly the same database files as the current version and will run concurrently with the current character based version of MedOffIS on a network. Older computers and workstations with a dialup connection can use the character based version while newer computers use the Windows application. The Windows graphical program will allow the use of drawing objects and incorporation of pictures such as digital photographs and scanned images in text areas.

Medical Office Information Systems

December 1, 2002