lOOKING FOR AN ELECTRONIC ANESTHESIA RECORD

I am looking for information for colleagues who may be using, looking for, or interested in electronic anesthesia records. I have been casually interested in teh past but now feel that we should begin to really pursue one of these things. I have talked wth one company, iMDsoft, but know little in general from anesthesia professionals about preferences. I look forward to your advise

I work at Mayo Clinic and we've been using the Picis product for about a decade

We used Picis for almost a year before giving up. The manufacturer could not make it work properly. It would not do simple math e.g. if I gave 700cc out of a 1000cc bag it would come up with a figure of 684cc of fluid given. If I checked the record an hour after the case was over, the number would change. It would not reliable collect the vital signs data from the monitors and it is extremely sensitive to the clock on the monitor. On one case, it did not collect 45 minutes worth of vital signs in the middle of the case. Unfortunately, the CRNA did not notice it until after the case was over. If the monitor clock differs from the computer by as little as three minutes, data collection will often cease. The printouts are many pages long. Usually a half hour case was 5 pages but we had some short cases which ran to 30 pages. The all time record was 107 but not all of them printed. Most were blank. There is a problem with the formatting and with the driver. We stopped using it. The hospital uses EPIC for the electronic medical record and we are waiting to see what the EPIC anesthesia record will look like.

We are using rapid sequence anesthesia record which is great, check out the web site libertyadvantage or google rapid sequence electronic medical record. We love the product so far, easy to use, and they also network our cases to a billing program. The cost is a fraction of the cost of the more expensive programs or records

Anesthesia Record wrote:

I am looking for information for colleagues who may be using, looking for, or interested in electronic anesthesia records. I have been casually interested in teh past but now feel that we should begin to really pursue one of these things. I have talked wth one company, iMDsoft, but know little in general from anesthesia professionals about preferences. I look forward to your advise

We are using rapid sequence anesthesia record it's great, google it

I am a CRNA currently writing a textbook for Legal Nurse Consultants about anesthesia records and how to review them. I would love to hear comments on electronic anesthesia record systems that they are really pleased with.

i know imdsoft and i would not consider them as a viable solution for anesthesia record. it is just a toy that crashes continuously.

I believe that what a practice will get out of these products is a direct reflection of what they are willing to put into them. These are not turn-key systems. For example, we had the same problem of data dropout and discovered it was the serial cards, not the software. We switched to connecting the monitors via a network connection and they now work fine.

We had similar frustrations with printed records, and decided not to print them out. Of course, our facility is now about 100% electronic, although we were a bit in front of the power curve.

To be successful you must have your own in-house IT staff to configure, install, maintain, and update. Don't depend on the company and certainly don't depend on the clinical staff to do this kind of work.

Hi, Just wanted to say that I have used the WINCHART (Australian software) in the UK for over 3 years and I think it is a fantastic software. It is not without any problems but most probems are small. You can discuss issues with the company and sort out probems / personalise it according to your hospital / personal needs.

I am first a registered nurse and regional sales manager for iMDsoft. Our Anesthesia Information Management System is superior in my opinion for flexibility, reliability, has a great user interface and most importantly to me: We have a 100% Implementation and Customer Retention. Founded in 1996 with over 125 worldwide instillations, our record speaks volumes about the knowledge of our staff, robust features of our products, and our ability to deliver. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Barnes Jewish Hospital and Partners Healthcare have completed theri due diligence nad have chosen our products. Feel free to contact me for more information, I will be happy to demonstrate our solution to you. frank.kerr@imd-soft.com

I am an anesthesiologist and have written my own Automated Anesthesia Record program. It has been developed over the last 10 years with testing and suggestions by my anesthesia colleagues. I have made a manual version available for free and it is used, literally, all over the world. It can be downloaded from my website at:

www.rapid-record.com

An automated version is also available and at very low cost compared to the current commercially available systems (as low as $3000 excluding hardware). The automated version has been well received and is currently used in five different hospitals. I would be happy to supply references.

Write to me at abajian@rapid-record.com

MAbajian wrote:

I am an anesthesiologist and have written my own Automated Anesthesia Record program. It has been developed over the last 10 years with testing and suggestions by my anesthesia colleagues. I have made a manual version available for free and it is used, literally, all over the world. It can be downloaded from my website at:
www.rapid-record.com
An automated version is also available and at very low cost compared to the current commercially available systems (as low as $3000 excluding hardware). The automated version has been well received and is currently used in five different hospitals. I would be happy to supply references.
Write to me at abajian@rapid-record.com

I am Sales Executive with Advanced Anesthesia a technology company that uses Automated Anesthesia records to bill, our unique software and service is the handshake between these Anesthesia Information Management Systems (AIMS) and getting paid correctly, no missed charges, no lost charges. We have free information on our web site for choosing the correct system for your organization. Because our system is so effective we can save you up to 40% on your billing cost.
Not only will we help you with the process if you use our service we can help fund the AIMS system of your choice. www.advancedanesthsia.net
Please feel free to contact me @ rkrenek@advancedanesthesia.net

Take a look at Anesthesia Informatics, editors Stonemetz and Ruskin, Springer ISBN 978 0 387 76417 7.

Lots of helpful information which will help you to make an informed choice.

Anesthesia Record wrote:

I am looking for information for colleagues who may be using, looking for, or interested in electronic anesthesia records. I have been casually interested in teh past but now feel that we should begin to really pursue one of these things. I have talked wth one company, iMDsoft, but know little in general from anesthesia professionals about preferences. I look forward to your advise

We are in the midst of trialing Picis and it is so cumbersome, so layered, and so inflexible that we are seeking other automated anesthesia record products. The Picis company' support group is unhelpful, unimaginative, and unyielding.

Dr. MTR,
I would like to speak wiht you regarding your search for other Anesthesia Systems. Please email: frank.kerr@imdsoft.com
Frank Kerr

DrMTR wrote:

<quoted text>We are in the midst of trialing Picis and it is so cumbersome, so layered, and so inflexible that we are seeking other automated anesthesia record products. The Picis company' support group is unhelpful, unimaginative, and unyielding.

Our cumbersome struggle with PICIS had one good side effect. It inspired me to write trueEMR. My anesthesia group has now done over 4,000 cases with trueEMR and it is about to be released www.trueEMR.com

Has anyone used Draeger's software? I hear they signed a contract with the DOD and much of the VA.
Also, has anyone used the software from SIS?
Thanks

Anesthesia Record wrote:

I am looking for information for colleagues who may be using, looking for, or interested in electronic anesthesia records. I have been casually interested in teh past but now feel that we should begin to really pursue one of these things. I have talked wth one company, iMDsoft, but know little in general from anesthesia professionals about preferences. I look forward to your advise

Most Children's Hospitals have gone to Cerner's Anesthesia module which also has bugs like almost any one of the other Anesthesia applications. Cerner's product is tightly intergrated with their EMR Powerchart documentation. One thing to keep in mind is going with an App that is open source (XML based) so that when regional records networks are developed, then the data translation to another facility or when you want to refer a patient out, that whole record can be transfered seamlessly and with open source documentation customization is a faster and this is key in keeping up with regulations and anesthesia studies. So integration with the EMR documentation in open source is your best option.

As a technical consultant to the implementation of anesthesia data integration solutions, I can vouch for the above comment that iMDSoft is a toy product. For nontechnical users, all they see is the front end, which is advertised as very customizatble. True. However, from a technical perspective, it is a data disaster. This is because it is written in Visual Basic (as this suggests, this is a primitive language whose origin is over 30 years old, and prevents modern coding and maintenance methods; it also suggests the less than sophisticated level of programming expertise of the company). Each anesthesia data record is fragmented into over 200 files, making it IMPOSSIBLE to extract any data or integrate the data with any other information system. The data is also in no standard (HL7 or XML) form, again, making it impossible to integrate to our hospital systems. Our interactions with the engineers at iMDSoft has been thus far less than satisfactory, with information requests for specifications and technical details denied or given evasive answers. With this lack of trust, it bodes poorly for any kind of long term relationship with the company. The company itsself is heavy on management and marketing, and very sparse on techical substance in our dealings. An implementation requires a serious investment and full time support staff to get it off the ground. The implementation at their model installation (on their website) took a FULL YEAR to install and get working, and reqired a CRNA to work half time during this time on 'customization'. Actually, this is something that the company needed to provide out of the box, rather than having the customer continue to pay for features and addons by supplying their own personnnel to do this work. In summary, do your due diligence, get under the hood to the specifications and data file formats, and do not rely on the marketing brochures and websites. You MUST get under the hood and understand how these software works, or you are asking for a data disaster.

Have you tried looking at Centricty Anaesthesia from GE?