Spring Medical Systems and MacPractice, Inc. have announced that a new HL7 compliant interface is now available for Spring Medical’s SpringCharts EHR and the MacPractice MD practice management system (PMS). This new module provides seamless data integration between the clinical (EHR) and financial (PMS) systems in a Mac medical office. This enables better data consistency within the practice and reduces redundant data entry and errors.
The SpringCharts/MacPractice solution is a significant development for medical offices that depend on Apple Macintosh computers as their technology platform of choice. Macs continue to gain market share among businesses with sales up more than 32 percent in 2008 according to market researcher Gartner Group. With the combined SpringCharts/MacPractice solution enabled by the new integration, a Mac-based practice can manage all clinical and business data in one integrated system that:
• Provides seamless data exchange between the EHR & PMS
• Eliminates redundant re-keying of data into multiple systems
• Enables dramatically improved charting, billing and claims
Dr. Eve Kimball and her partners have been long-term users of both SpringCharts and MacPractice and have been using the new integration in limited release in their practice, All About Children Pediatric Partners in Reading, Pennsylvania. “We are pleased with what we have seen in this partial implementation and are looking forward to using the link throughout the practice,” said Kimball in the press release. “We have been very happy with SpringCharts and anticipate that we will gain even more value when the link is fully implemented.”
“More and more practices are realizing that an integrated front and back office solution that combines an EHR with a PMS is critical to their success,” said Jack Smyth, president and CEO of Spring Medical Systems, in the press release. “With this partnership, we can now offer an integrated medical office technology solution for the Mac.”
Mark Hollis, President of MacPractice, Inc., said in the press release, “We are excited that the new MacPractice HL7 interface is now available. Our customers are anxiously awaiting this integration. Undoubtedly our momentum in the marketplace and the adoption of MacPractice MD by physicians who prefer Macintosh will accelerate even more rapidly as a result.”
Spring Medical Systems, Inc. was founded by a team of physicians and technology professionals with the primary goal of developing easy-to-use software solutions that empower physicians to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and provide better patient care. The Company’s flagship offering is the SpringCharts® family of products – SpringCharts EHR and SpringCharts Essentials. These innovative electronic health records solutions combine the right mix of rich functionality, intuitive ease-of-use, and affordability needed to enable rapid and complete documentation with a minimum of cost and disruption. Now in its tenth year of development and in use by physicians in a variety of medical specialties, Spring Medical products provide complete EHR solutions for independent medical offices.
MacPractice, Inc. is a client-centric practice management company staffed by highly experienced and caring individuals. The MacPractice team is dedicated to the development and supply of best-of-class Macintosh software, hardware, and associated services for physicians, chiropractors, optometrists and dentists.
More info about MacPractice here.
More info about Spring Medical Systems here.
Wow… That’s a long article.
Maybe MS can get Kevorkian to endorse Windows Vista.
To appreciate how big a deal this is, go to Apple’s website and check out the small business profiles of the doctors around the country using Macs to run their practices. They’re either using MacPractice or Spring Charts; now it looks like the SMB doctor/dentist/optometry office doesn’t have to choose anymore because a more complete solution exists.
Way cool! Mac adoption will now only accelerate.
Peace.
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Olmecmystic
I wish this would keep my brother from converting from MediMac to a Windows based solution – I really do. But pressure from partners and inlaws has finally gotten the better of him, and rather than support what I see as, not only a better solution than anything Windows has got going, but also better than MediMac (Some or all of the MacPractice people were MediMac), he’s grown tired of being alone on the platform front – too damn bad – really.
My dentist’s practice was also based on DentalMac until recently, but they, like my brother, grew weary of the developers struggling to decide what they were going to do with OS X, and now that practice is running on some hyper expensive, high maintenance Windows-based system. I wonder how many clients the MediMac people lost in the transition (or lack thereof), from OS 9 to OS X, and what the hell happened anyway.
Oh well, it’s H2O under the bridge, and at least they’ve got something new going on now.
I’m currently trying to prevent a Dental Practice from converting to Windows. It is currently running OS 9 with DentalMac.
Would MacPractice with OS X be the solution?
We lost out here as well, mainly due to physician portals relying on ActiveX to display charts.
Also, the vendor we use for A.Pathology uses a filemaker based solution, but has dropped Mac support due to their client demographics… even upgrading to new intel macs that could run “windows” as an application that runs another application, is not being considered due to dells costing $140.
I feel like its the 1990’s again! in more way then one!!
For EMR I use Word with my templates and I use Leopard to file the charts. Each patient gets their own folder and spotlight finds everything, including key words from within the chart. Cheaper and Word/Leopard have better features than the rest.
For Billing I wrote my own Filemaker based software that looks and works great. Not busy looking like the commercial software and way cheaper. Plus I have all of the features of the mainstream programs plus the ability to use filemaker’s powerful tools for search etc. 50K for Medical Manager? No thanks.
Scheduling: iCal
Addresses: Address book
And they all work great in Leopard with spotlight, .Mac, screen sharing, time machine. None of the files are in proprietary format and they all reside on the local disk as well as the backup. Also, no middleman (clearinghouse)!
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@Alain,
That’s awesome! I always laugh at the companies that purchase video conferencing software for Winblows when iChat comes free with every Mac. Showing someone how easy it is to video conference with 2 Macs is a sure-fire seller.