Let's say you want to add a new point-of-care reminder to your registry, like lead screening for children in high-risk zip codes. You also want the value of that screening tracked in your registry, and if the result from the screening is out-of-range, add a "lead poisoning" condition to that patient's registry record.
If the generation of reminders from your registry is driven by a small computer program for each reminder, you'd ask your programmer to visit you and listen as to how this reminder needs to work. He/she would go back to their cubicle, figure out how to create the program, write it, test it, give it to you for final review and then get the new program out to everyone. Probably a couple of months effort end-to-end.
If the generation of reminders is driven through a rules engine that gets reminder information from a table, you'd just select the "Add New Reminder" button, fill in a few fields (just like you would fill out a form on any web site), click on "Save" and the new reminder rule would be in effect. Probably a couple of hour effort end-to-end.
I can't stress enough the importance of a table-driven rules engine (the second scenario described above). It certainly will save you a lot of money as you don't need to hire/pay a programmer for each reminder you want to generate.
More importantly, though, is gain from being able to implement reminders in a day - the sooner you can implement a reminder tied to a pay-for-performance program, the sooner you can start collecting on that program.
And, when reminders are really easy to implement, you'll find you can implement all sorts of them on a variety of conditions and really improve the care provided to your patients.
Dave Morin
CEO
Cielo MedSolutions
Labels: care reminders, patient centered medical home, patient registry
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