The Situation
Dr. Killorn, a respirologist, established the Burlington Lung Clinic (BLC) in 2007 after practicing in the Ottawa area for many years.  Today, Dr. Killorn provides respiratory care to an expanding patient base that depends on his counsel and experience.  He and the BLC staff place great emphasis on health care management in a congenial and consultative environment.  This philosophy is very well received by both patients and referring physicians resulting in a continuous increase in patient volume.

 

Dr. Killorn’s initial challenge was to understand and resolve the issues involved in successfully establishing a new medical practice.  At that same time, he wanted to start benefiting from the efficiencies of using an EMR and practice management system.  For example, one of his most time consuming tasks was sending consult notes to referring doctors.  In the past, this task took a few days or even a week because it required dictation, transcription, review and then faxing or mailing the letter to the referring doctor.

 

In selecting an EMR platform, Dr. Killorn was looking for a turnkey solution - that would take little time and effort to maintain - an accurate system with near 100% uptime and one that would automatically back-up patient data seamlessly and securely and ensure confidentiality of patient records.  In addition, since Dr. Killorn was establishing his practice, he was concerned with operating it as efficiently as possible and therefore the solution’s cost and monthly/ yearly maintenance fees would prove to be an important factor in his decision.

 

The Solution
Dr. Killorn preferred to rely on the advice of colleagues that had practical experience. Many of the colleagues that he trusted and respected were already using ABELMed for a number of years and were delighted with the solution’s power, ease of use and competitive price. After seeing a demonstration of ABELMed and meeting with ABEL’s sales team, Dr. Killorn was certain that the solution would work for his practice.

 

For Dr. Killorn, the proven solution enhances patient care by increasing efficiency. He and his clinic staff have all become highly skilled at using the fully integrated features in ABELMed. Dr. Killorn can now enter and send his consultation report back to the referring doctor the same day that he sees the patient, a task that took up to a week before EMR. With ABELMed, Dr. Killorn electronically receives lab reports and test results on his dashboard and directly in patient charts and can easily review them prior to seeing the patient. This crucial clinical information is always at his fingertips and he is not waiting for information from a lab or looking through faxes and loose papers saving him and the practice considerable amount of time.

 

Dr. Killorn saves a considerable amount of time by using electronic prescriptions.  Instead of making notes and handwriting prescriptions, he enters the prescriptions into ABELMed and it automatically attaches limited use forms and prints the appropriate codes on the Rx.  Every prescription is tracked and securely stored in the appropriate patient record so there is no filing required. In addition, ABELMed integrates with comprehensive drug interaction databases and the system alerts him to any contraindications or drug interactions that may arise.

 

Dr. Killorn’s practice is also benefiting from using ABELMed’s security and comprehensive audit features. Electronic Medical Records are more secure than paper records since all access to these records is controlled through individual user passwords and the system can be set to limit access to staff with a legitimate “need to know” for treatment, payment or operations purposes.  In addition, activity on medical file access is fully documented.

 

In addition, the entire practice now benefits from ABELMed’s flexible and powerful scheduler, patient demographics management, automated health card validation and the billing suite which facilitates electronic data transfer to the Ministry of Health.

 

Billing efficiently, accurately and on-time was key in Dr. Killorn’s selection of ABELMed. The system handles billing through OHIP, WCB, insurance providers, out-of-province agencies, third parties and directly to patients. Dr. Killorn likes that the software includes the standard Ministry billing codes and can also create custom billing code sets which greatly reduces human error. For example, ABELMed alerts the user if attempts are made to create a bill that is missing essential information or if an incorrect diagnostic code is entered.

The solution also meets Dr. Killorn’s storage requirements by eliminating the need for time consuming and costly onsite/offsite document storage. ABELMed’s secure and vast storage capacity has proved to be invaluable to the practice.

 

The Relationship
Dr. Killorn and his staff have embraced ABELMed’s solution and its comprehensive, yet easy-to-use functionality Dr. Killorn and his staff found ABEL’s incremental approach to training very beneficial.  At the time of initial implementation, ABEL provided comprehensive training for features that were routinely used, making the practice functional in a very short period of time.  Over the years, as the staff got more and more proficient with the use of EMR, ABEL provided further in-depth training of its features and functionalities. For reference and ongoing learning, his clinicians take advantage of ABELMed’s, user-friendly online Help, video tutorials and documentation.

 

In recognition of the rapid changes taking place in the EMR software industry, Dr. Killorn’s administrative team actively participates with ABELMed by routinely installing platform upgrades and implementing the use of new features and providing valuable feedback.  In particular, the practice played a key role in ABELMed’s template design program in 2008 and 2009.  The benefit of this cooperative effort is that the customized templates allow the practice to capitalize on additional efficiencies, greatly enhancing productivity.

 

The Result
Dr. Killorn stated, “We are delighted with the system.  ABELMed continues to innovate and make our practice more and more efficient. I am able to spend more time with patients, less time on administration and, in so doing, deliver better health care."  Dr. Killorn also said, “On the financial side there are many benefits as well. Most notably, the clinic’s processes are now more streamlined, saving us time and money and my administrative staff is now able to use their time more productively.  Looking forward, we truly believe that a completely paperless doctor’s office is the way to go and ABEL is our trusted partner in achieving this goal for our office.”