Waiting+Time

**FINAL REPORT**


 * Problem Statement: **

Our group, team 2, decided to tackle the ongoing issue of electronic health records being implemented in the health field. The fact that the sharing of patient’s medical records has become such a hard task to accomplish is simply a fact that can be remedied in many different ways. Our team chose to make an EHR application that would pull up the patient’s information by use of biometric technology. Through the use of scanning fingerprints or some sort of dynamic biometric scanning, we can easily and instantly access the patient’s information and process the patient much faster than what the "norm" in the vast healthcare industry is currently used to.


 * Evidence to Support the Problem: **

This day in age, a lot of clinics and hospitals are still relying on paper based forms and files which simply do not get the job done as efficiently as electronic processing can. A lot of issues have plagued the healthcare field because of the use of paper format. Such problems include documents being damaged, lost or stolen, legibility issues and organizational issues which are time consuming due to the fact that it will take longer to locate a certain patient’s files. In our class with Dr. Oh, these issues were discussed in-depth with our fellow classmates and our team received plenty of feedback on our project idea. With our feedback from our classmates and further we research, we realized that the implementation of EHRs in many different platforms and fields are being requested by many healthcare organizations. That is, if they haven’t already implemented some version of EHRs, that is.


 * Potential Solutions: **

In our team's paper, we discuss a potential solution to this need in the healthcare field by developing the biometric scanning application which can be utilized in all fields of healthcare. From the emergency room to Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT), every healthcare specialist has a tab or section in our application which proves to be useful and can be a very a valuable tool out in the field. The application itself can have a stored database of all patients whom have given consent to have their health files electronically stored, and be transferred to any healthcare provider who is in-network under the same umbrella of providers. With this application, most, if not all of the issues which healthcare providers face will be solved by implementing our EHR application.


 * Research on Existing/Alternate Solutions Tried by Others: **


 * Care360 **

Care360 is a web based Electronic Health Records system that allows doctors easy access to their patient's information. The system allows physicians to manage lab results, ePrescribe, use a built clinical messaging service, fill out documents electronically, and manage documents. It does this while maintaining Interoperability and allows access to a network of over 300,000 doctors and 90,000 medical organizations.


 * NextGen Healthcare **

NextGen Healthcare is company that offers different solutions for medical organizations. NextGen includes an integrated EHR and practice management system, Hospital Solutions for rural community hospitals, Revenue management systems, and systems to help hospitals transfer patient information between other hospitals and healthcare organizations.


 * Feasibility of Each Solution: **

Each of these possible existing solutions stated above have their own drawbacks. Care360’s web based user interface is incredibly unorganized and not very user friendly. NextGen Healthcare suffers from similar problems, although it seems to be slightly more organized than Care360. The real issues with these solutions are that they do not offer a quick access to a patient’s EHR, especially when the patient is unable to communicate for whatever reason. Another issue is that neither of these solutions offer a well designed mobile app for all doctors and clinicians, particularly Emergency Medical Technician's (EMT) and emergency room (ER) doctors.


 * Your Chosen Approach: **

We wanted to create a mobile application for medical professionals so that they can easily access a patient’s records by taking a fingerprint. With a quick fingerprint scan, EMT’s can access an unresponsive patients medical history to make sure they don’t cause any unexpected or fatal medical errors. We also wanted this application to keep track of the basic information an EMT or first responder would take from a patient such as blood pressure, heart rate, body temperature, allergies, and current medications. Having to only take this information once instead of multiple times would help quicken the patient’s hospital visit. Once the patient is admitted, not only will their primary care physician have their patient’s old EHR information, but also the most current information such as the reason for their visit.


 * Your Timeline For Completion: **



**9/15/14** -We chose this topic because we wanted to create a more efficient way for medical professionals to access patient information.

**9/24/14**-We decided that we wanted to implement thumbprint scanning within mobile devices for medical professionals to access EHR's.

**11/3/14**-Created wireframe mockups of what our design could possibly look like.

**12/4/14**-Made adjustments such as moving the sidebar based on peer reviews and other feedback.


 * Team Workload and Roles: **

Our team met up to work on different aspects of the project when possible. When we were unable to meet in person, we would simply open up a Google doc and/or other sharable software so that we could all work on the project together. As far as roles and the workload goes, we individually decided what each of us would work on. After everyone finished their part, we reviewed the finished product and discussed any issues that anyone had if there were any.


 * Meeting Minutes: **

During the meetings, the team discussed how the project was going and what needed to be done in order to stay on track. This was also the time that was used to decide what each member was going to be working on and if there were any issues that needed to be addressed before any part of the project was to be presented.


 * Solution Prototypes: **

Part of the solution prototype we discussed was spent on deciding how we were going to make it easier for healthcare professionals to access a patient's electronic health record (EHR) quickly and efficiently. The solution we chose as stated previously, was to have a biometric scanner that read thumbprints. Your thumbprint would be linked to your EHR, and the medical professional that would scan it would have quick and easy access to your EHR. Our prototype included a lot of information from your EHR that would be displayed differently depending on your profession in the medical field. Each of our user interfaces, although different, had the same basic design. Each of our UIs had a section that would somehow connect to another medical professional's UI. For example, the doctor would be able to set a medication schedule that would then populate into the nurse's screen. Below is an example our prototype.




 * Final Solution: **

The prototype solution that we created was presented to the class. We received feedback from our classmates that helped us resolve minor issues and details and we were able to present our final product. One of the biggest issues we received about our prototype we fixed was the fact that our classmates felt it was too cluttered. So to resolve this, one of the things we did to streamline each user interface was to change the sidebar containing the list of medical professionals. We decided to make it a swipe feature. Part of our final prototype was to also change some settings and add security. Some of the settings changed were to limit access rights to each medical professional. For example, a nurse will have read only rights to the doctor's tab. But the doctor will have read and write rights to the nurse's tab. One of the security issues that were mentioned by the class was that some people may not want their ERH accessed by thumbprint scanning. The solution we added to solve this issue was to have people that consented to this service sign a document or waiver and have them register with their primary physician. Below is an example of our final solution.




 * Next Steps: **

Our next step would be to actually start the design phase. This would mean that we need to get investors, either design or outsource the design of the software, and also to make sure it is HIPAA compliant. Once we have a working prototype we would then need to have a test location to implement the service. We would have to get hospitals, doctors, etc that would be willing to work together in order to make this work. After having a successful testing phase we would expand into other locations.


 * Citations: **

About NextGen. (n.d.). Retrieved December 8, 2014, from [|__https://www.nextgen.com/About-NextGen__]

Quest Diagnostics Care360 EHR Electronic Health Record EMR : Electronic Health Record. (2014, September 24). Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://www.questdiagnostics.com/home/physicians/technology/care360/practice-solutions/electronic-health-record.html