Quest Offers EHR Modules To Small PracticesQuest Offers EHR Modules To Small Practices

Laboratory services provider Quest Diagnostics is making a push in the e-health record market with Web-based services that provide small doctors' offices with a modular functionalities.

Through Quest's information technology subsidiary, MedPlus, the company's Care360 EHR provides doctor practices realtime access to lab results, radiology results, as well as tools for clinical notes, problems lists, patient demographic data, immunizations, and clinical messaging. MedPlus also makes available e-prescription data via its Care360 ePrescribing services.

The company is offering doctors a free 90-day trial of Care360 EHR or Care360 ePrescribing, with a promise that both products will comply with the federal government's meaningful use criteria, which haven't yet been finalized.

The Care360 modules allow small physicians' practices to take a slower and less expensive approach to adopting EHR capabilities that are part of the interim meaningful use criteria -- such as electronic ordering -- but without forcing these doctors to completely redesign their workflows, said Rohit Nayak, MedPlus VP of physician technology solutions in an interview with information at HIMSS.

"A lot of large vendors are trying to automate the entire doctor practice, but that does not work with the unstructured environment of small doctor offices," he said. Care360 can "bridge the gap" for physicians seeking to be compliant with the expected first wave of meaningful use requirements, without incurring larger capital expenses or major practice workflow overhauls.

The software-as-a-service modules are also offered for use on mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPod Touch. The Care360 modules also interface with other vendors' EHR products, said Nayak.

"This approach lets you adopt technology at your own pace, it increments to your needs," he said.

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