Family Doctor Gets Instant Help With ChartWare

(EMAILWIRE.COM, January 16, 2007 ) Fort Stockton TX -- “I’m like everyone else. When I need something fixed on my computer I want it now. With many systems I’d be out of luck. With the one I have, I get what I want.” So says Dr. Cecil George, who runs a family practice, George Rural Health Center, in Fort Stockton, Texas. George is talking about his medical record system, which he uses for all of his seven thousand patients to provide legible, organized progress notes that he is certain enable him to provide better health care. “But, like all systems, sometimes I need help to fix a problem. With computers, when that happens, typically you get a tech support guy who goes down a checklist, starting with ‘did you turn the computer on?’ and, if it’s straightforward, he can get you going again. If not, you may wind up waiting a while,” George says. “What you want instead are intelligent people who understand the program inside out and can quickly guide you to the solution.” George makes these fulsome comments about the service provided by ChartWare, of Rohnert Park, California, one of only three electronic medical record companies to earn five stars in a survey by Family Practice Management, journal of the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the only one of the three suitable for both small and large installations. “I know that if the need is urgent, I simply have to pick up the phone and I will find someone knowledgeable at the other end. If it’s important but not that urgent they often work at it online, without even talking to me, so that when I come in the next morning the problem is generally solved. “Right now I need the new CPT and ICD-9 codes installed. I can wait a few days but meanwhile I feel confident that when it is done it will be done properly.” George began using ChartWare in 1997, when he had already done a lot of research into alternative systems. “I chose it because it produced progress notes that were laid out exactly as I would do a handwritten note. It is so adaptable that you can make it fit whatever your own individual working methods are,” he says. “All the critical information about a patient is right there at your fingertips. You don’t have to guess what a handwritten note from the emergency room means or ask patients questions they have already answered or try to remember what they told you about their family history two years ago.” He has convincing evidence that his patients too believe the system gives them better health care. “Remembering what I’ve told them about adverse drug interactions, quite often one of them will say ‘the doctor you sent me to gave me a medicine I hadn’t taken before. You’ll put it in your computer, won’t you?’”Contact: Dr. David Tully-Smith, ChartWare CEO, 707 323 2298 (dts@chartware.com) or visit www.chartware.com 101 Golf Course Drive, Suite A220, Rohnert Park, CA 94928

Joseph Nchor

reggreen@charter.net