Dr. Wendy Lee: Hi, I'm Dr. Wendy Lee, Ophthalmology Editor for OphthalmologyWeb, and today we're here with Dr. Darwin Liao. Thank you for being with us. He's from Seattle, Washington.
Today, we're going to talk about ifa systems electronic medical record system. Now, Dr. Liao, I know that you were one of the early adopters of this system. Tell me a little bit about what made you decide so early to go into this ophthalmology-specific EMR.
Dr. Darwin Liao: Sure.
So, we started a brand new practice in Seattle in 1999 after I finished residency. One of the goals initially at that time was to create something from scratch that would have electronic medical records and electronic practice management from the get-go. Obviously, going through training, seeing--working with a lot of the different institutions, seeing all the paper being pushed around, and then having a personal interest in technology, I realized that there's--the future is going to definitely be electronic medical records, and rather than wait to pick something later then have to deal with all the legacy paper, that we should jump in a start from the get-go with electronic medical records.
And we initially didn't really start with ifa. We had another vendor handling both our practice management and our medical record system. It turned out that the medical record part of it was oversold, hadn't really been ready for prime time quite yet--.
Dr. Wendy Lee: --Um-hmm--.
Dr. Darwin Liao: --So, at the end of the day, because I had a partner with us, we needed something just--that just worked--.
Dr. Wendy Lee: --Uh-huh--.
Dr. Darwin Liao: --So, we went back to ifa systems.
Dr. Wendy Lee: Oh, great. Okay.
You had some early insight there. That's great because everything is shifting now to EMR. We're even shifting now at the university.
So, tell me how easy it was to transition into ifa. How easy was it for you to bring ifa systems in?
Dr. Darwin Liao: Yeah, to get it online was actually extremely easy. As I said, we had already kind of gone through a pretty large installation with another vendor--.
Dr. Wendy Lee: --Right--.
Dr. Darwin Liao: --Trying to work with their EMR, and to get ifa online was just a matter of phone calls, getting all the, you know, contracts paid, and then simply their staff flew out and was able to install the software within a matter of hours--.
Dr. Wendy Lee: --Great--.
Dr. Darwin Liao: --We were then, basically, starting training, with the added advantage that we didn't have with the other package that our instrumentation data from our electronic automated phoropter was now being automatically imported into the medical record as well.
Dr. Wendy Lee: Okay, great. So, very smooth transition.
Along those lines, tell me about how important it is to have these instrument interfaces and the guarantees you have on those.
Dr. Darwin Liao: Yeah.
It was vital to us. It was just, like, if we're going to do an entire, you know, automated, you know, refraction and get the data out of there, you know, why then transcribe things manually off the little receipt paper--.
Dr. Wendy Lee: --Right--.
Dr. Darwin Liao: --Into the EMR? There's, you know, room for tech transcription error or if the doctors are doing it themselves, again, transcription errors would be the number-one issue you have. So, for the time savings, obviously, it was vital to be able to pull in as much instrumentation data as possible and not have any duplication or redundancy of data--.
Dr. Wendy Lee: --Right--.
Dr. Darwin Liao: --Lying out there.
Dr. Wendy Lee: So, you've had this system in place, EMR, for over 10 years now, is that right?
Dr. Darwin Liao: Just about 10 years, right.
Dr. Wendy Lee: And how many times have you had any technical problems or had to call the company for any issues over these 10 years?
Dr. Darwin Liao: It's interesting because I usually--I was able to go in there, and customization is extremely easy with an ifa. If there's a--you find yourself typing, and you didn't want to have to type the next time you encounter that same issue, you can easily create an abbreviation and a button on your own to modify your exam form--.
Dr. Wendy Lee: --Um-hmm--.
Dr. Darwin Liao: --So, the questions I would have are probably more on the advanced level.
But, for example, if we needed a new update to our interface--our ifa was able to install an HL7 interface, so we can import/export demographics back to our third-party--.
Dr. Wendy Lee: --Um-hmm--.
Dr. Darwin Liao: --Practice management systems. They actually had upgraded their HL7 standards at one point, causing a little bit of a data transcription error that hadn't been fixed yet. So, we simply called ifa, and they were able to identify the problem very quickly and remotely--.
Dr. Wendy Lee: --Great--.
Dr. Darwin Liao: --Upload the fix for us.
So, you know, that's probably the type of thing that we would call them for; otherwise, we're pretty much smooth sailing.
Dr. Wendy Lee: Great, and very responsive on their part as well.
Well, perfect. Thanks so much for being with us today and speaking to us about ifa systems. I appreciate it.
Dr. Darwin Liao: No problem. Thank you.