At HIMSS06 last month in San Diego, PatientKeeper Inc. emphasized its ability to support a physician’s entire work day across facilities, organizations and disparate information systems through use of the company’s technology. The functionality of the technology is broad, including accessing patients' electronic records, writing prescriptions, entering charges for services, documentation, order placement, and secure messaging, the company said. 

The new PatientKeeper applications shown at HIMSS included:  

• Patient Care Suite, including: Ambulatory Order Entry that allows physicians to efficiently and accurately enter orders for lab tests, diagnostic images, and other outpatient procedures; Task Manager streamlines patient hand-off and sign-out by ensuring that no tasks are missed in the process; and Clinical Surveillance automates monitoring and identification of key patient populations;
• PatientKeeper Charge Capture Suite includes Analytics that allows physicians, office managers, billing staff, and administrators to perform extensive analysis on their billing patterns and charge submission process;
• PatientKeeper Documentation Suite includes Forms which streamlines the process, increases the accuracy, and reduces the cost of capturing data on forms.  The tool automatically populates forms with relevant patient information and routes forms to the appropriate destination - either on paper or via EDI; NoteWriter provides a way for physicians to create template-based notes that are automatically pre-populated with the most current patient information; and eSignature which enables physicians to sign clinical notes and orders from anywhere using a handheld PDA, laptop, wireless tablet, or desktop PC; and
• PatientKeeper Communications Suite includes Messaging that allows physicians to securely send messages and requests to other caregivers and automatically provide links to the relevant patient information.