MDSERVE Practice Management System-PECS Interface Completes Successful Beta Testing

Stafford, Texas, February 8, 2005 | MDSERVE, Inc. ("MDSERVE") has announced the completion of successful beta testing of the MDSERVE Practice Management System ("PMS") -Patient Electronic Care System ("PECS") interface at the Little River Medical Center, Little River, SC. The interface enables Community Health Centers and other healthcare providers who report data to the Bureau of Primary Health Care's Health Disparities Collaboratives ("HDC") to transfer patient demographic information as well as conditions or diagnoses to the PECS database without manually entering the information. The interface is scheduled for rollout in March, 2005.

Pamela Davis, Little River Medical Center Executive Director stated, "The MDSERVE PMS-PECS interface will save a huge amount of staff time and allow more timely reporting and accurate analysis. The end result is higher quality care with less potential for error and a savings of thousands of dollars."

The Little River Medical Center is in Phase II of the Diabetic Collaborative and will enter the Cardiovascular and Depression Collaboratives this spring. It has over 11,000 patients and more than 43,000 annual encounters.

MDSERVE Executive Vice President Jock Putney said, "The MDSERVE PMS-PECS interface is an important step in closing the information reporting loop. It not only allows the discrete patient data captured in MDSERVE's Practice Management System to be reported and shared by members of the HDC, it also reduces the manual entry of patient data, increases data accuracy and improves the response time of the Community Health Centers we serve."

"This development effort further demonstrates MDSERVE's commitment to assist Community Health Centers by making patient information accurate, efficient and easy to access. The resources it frees up can then be applied to the important job of providing quality healthcare to those who need it," Putney said.

Cindy Causey, Nursing Director, at the Little River Medical Center said, "In the past it took us several weeks to manually complete patient demographic information for the Diabetic Collaborative. In some cases we were double and triple documenting as we put the information in the chart and PECS database. The interface will bring tremendous time and manpower savings to Community Health Centers as we take on new Collaboratives over time."

According to Kathie Westpheling, MPH, Executive Director of the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved ("ACU"), "This new integration of practice management and PECS is a great leap forward in meeting the needs of Community Health Center clinical teams who participate in the Health Disparities Collaboratives. Our ACU members comment that timely data is vital to show evidence of improved health outcomes."

The BPHC initiated the Health Disparities Collaboratives in 1998, in an effort to dramatically improve US health care. As the HDC effort expanded to include asthma, depression, cancer screening and cardiovascular in addition to diabetes, it became evident that a generalized CIS (Clinical Information System) was needed, and The Aristos Group, Austin, TX ("Aristos") was selected to design the Patient Electronic Care System (PECS).

In October, 2004, MDSERVE announced that it had entered into an agreement with Aristos to jointly develop the first interface between PECS and an EMR (Electronic Medical Record) system. The MDSERVE CliniFlow EMR- PECS interface is currently in beta testing with release anticipated as part of CliniFlow Version 4.0 at the end of the second quarter, 2005.

MDSERVE develops healthcare software and works in partnership with NACHC, the National Association of Community Health Centers, to offer the Technology Support Program (TSP), a total technology solution that includes the MDSERVE Practice Management System, the CliniFlow EMR System, accounting packages and a complete array of managed IT services at its Houston, TX Data Center as well as client locations.

Contact

Sherry Bray BSN, RN
Clinical Services Manager & HIPAA Compliance Officer
MDSERVE
4800 Sugar Grove Blvd., Suite 200
Stafford, TX 77477
(281) 295-1514
sbray@mdserve.com
www.mdserve.com