CEO Column: Integrating After-Hours Triage Notes with EMRs

Ravi K. Raheja, MD, CEO

An increasing number of individual practices and medical organizations are using after-hours nurse triage to improve patient care, and they are reaping huge benefits. Not only does nurse triage provide cost-effective healthcare access to patients when their physicians’ offices are closed, but it helps decrease unnecessary visits to the emergency room and reduce risk by using standardized protocols and proper documentation.

To achieve continuity of care, documentation from the telephone encounter must be sent to the attending physician in a timely and effective manner. Any center using our Call Center Solution™ software can send patient notes to their practices. Practices handled using TriageLogic’s services receive patient call notes this way. This feature is consistent with our mission to provide 24/7 quality healthcare software that is simple to use, effective and capable of efficient documentation.

Approximately 85% of practices today use paper charts. For these paper-based practices a fax is generated from the TriageLogic system and sent securely as soon as the nurse completes the patient call. Physicians also have the option of getting an encrypted note emailed to them so they can print it themselves or review it electronically. In addition, these practices do not need to worry about their future electronic medical record (EMR) choice because the TriageLogic Interface Engine will connect to any EMR system.

For the practices that already have an EMR system in place or already know one they plan to implement, the ideal approach is to have the triage encounter sent directly to the patient’s EMR chart. TriageLogic has invested the time to build an integration engine that allows the TriageLogic note to transmit via a secure HL7 message to any EMR system.

This has immense implications. For any call center using the TriageLogic Call Center Solution, it can offer clients the option of having their triage notes sent directly to their EMR patient chart seamlessly. This will help coordinate and integrate care, which is one of the requirements for a practice to become a medical home.

In addition to our Call Center Solution Software™ service, TriageLogic’s web-based Office Solution™ is an important application for provider offices. The office solution software helps triage calls during the day and connect to each provider’s EMR via the TriageLogic Translation Engine. The Office Solution™ application is an important tool to help nurses and doctors ensure patients are getting the highest quality of care when patients call the office during the day. Office managers can also rest assured that every call is being followed-up and documented.

By implementing the new Translation Engine, TriageLogic can now link together all of its products and services with providers’ EMRs, which in turn will promote better clinical and business outcomes through an interoperable framework.

See the accompanying chart that illustrates this process. We encourage you to read more about our products on our website at www.triagelogic.com.