IQware Applications for Healthcare

The uncommon cure for common healthcare IT problems

IT systems in many healthcare organizations are a patchwork quilt of legacy platforms, organically-grown software, and specialized applications. Managing these disparate and often incompatible systems can be error-prone, labor-intensive, and very expensive. Resolving these problems requires technology updates and upgrades, but many barriers stand in the way:

• Cost and complexity of new IT implementation
• Significant changes in work process and cultural changes within the healthcare profession
• Payment policies that reward volume rather than quality
• Fragmented delivery systems
• Competition with other priorities, especially brick-and-mortar projects
• Cost of training and support for new systems

To address all these issues all at once, your organization can deploy the IQware Healthcare Information System (HCIS). Designed to work cooperatively with your existing healthcare IT systems, IQware HCIS enhances your current systems rather than replaces them. This way, you can prevent the culture shock that often accompanies IT upgrades and improvement.

Applying unique patented technology that uses rules instead of programing, IQware HCIS can:

• Handle all common healthcare activities including admissions, EMR, pharmacy operations, tracking, auditing, and compliance verification
• Enable all technologies to communicate across organizational and geographic boundaries, which eliminates the need for manual re-entry of patient information in numerous disparate systems
• Operate on a variety of platforms including Microsoft® Windows®, Sun, and Linux, and emerging mobile devices such as iPads
• Support change “on the fly” with no expensive custom-coding involved
• Install easily and efficiently, with no downtime, no lost data, and no incompatibility issues
• Create and support HIPAA- and HITECH Act-compliant IT systems that protect patient information
• Provide automated checks-and-balances features vital to the promotion of patient medication compliance, patient safety, and the reduction of medication errors

Meeting your top requirements

With the comprehensive capabilities built into IQware HCIS, you can meet your top IT and clinical requirements.

Already widely deployed in the pharmaceutical industry as a secure reporting system for tracking, billing and reimbursement of Medication Therapy Management (MTM) services, IQware solutions are now used to address the needs of the broader healthcare industry:

• Improving electronic health records (EHRs) – Providing more real-time access to patient records and improving the effectiveness of records longitudinally
• Enhancing computerized provider order entry systems (CPOE) – Extending the CPOE to include lab orders, radiology studies, procedures, discharges, transfers, and referrals
• Expanding clinical decision support systems (CDSS) – Making CDSS more portable to more devices; improving the real-time responsiveness of data retrieval
• Improving picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) – Enabling seamless, more responsive dissemination of files among disparate systems
• Interfacing with MUMPS – Sharing data with MUMPS applications by directly accessing the on-disk records created and used by the MUMPS applications

Enabling Medication Therapy Management

To align with the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA), sponsors of Medicare Part D must include MTM systems designed to optimize therapeutic outcomes for targeted beneficiaries. As part of the MMA:

• Pharmacists can bill for professional MTM services provided to patients, including the development of individual prescription drug plans (PDPs). PDPs are designed to improve medication use and reduce adverse drug events and interactions.
• Reimbursement levels are expected to be $1–3 per minute for professional MTM services.
• Each MTM transaction is tracked and taxed, creating revenue for the pharmacist each time an MTM encounter is completed.
• Prescription drug providers are required by law to reimburse pharmacists for MTM services provided.

While the pharmaceutical industry sees great value in deploying an MTM system, there are many barriers to success:

• Implementation is very costly and error-prone.
• Administrative burden outweighs any increase in revenue.
• Manual billing is prone to errors, including oversight and missed opportunities for re-billing rejected claims.
• Training is costly and time-consuming.
• Pharmacies are often unable to easily and effectively identify patients who may benefit from MTM services, either currently or in the future; this creates a losing situation for both patients and pharmacists.

To help pharmacists overcome these obstacles, IQware developed a comprehensive, HIPAA-compliant health information delivery system for MTM plans. Providing a secure audit trail and comprehensive reports for reimbursement, the IQware MTM solution:

• Eases administrative and reporting burdens through automation – Pharmacists have more time with patients and increased revenue opportunities
  • More MTM patients = more MTM revenue for the pharmacist
• Tracks and taxes each MTM transaction – Creating revenue for the pharmacist each time an MTM encounter is logged into the system
• Tracks adverse drug effects and interactions – Specifically targets and maximizes positive patient outcomes, thereby reducing negative consequences of drug interactions
• Integrates seamlessly with all existing pharmacy systems
• Installs without cooperation with or intervention from current vendors
• Complies with HIPAA and PDP rules and regulations – Offers a complete audit trail of all transactions for governmental reporting and filing requirements
• Offers 100% resistance to desktop viruses hackers – With built-in security at the software level
• Identifies "dual eligibles" – Alerts the pharmacist to lapsed or late payments by PDPs
• Identifies patients within the current population who could benefit from MTM services currently or in the future

A word about MUMPS

Developed in the late 1960s, and originally written for the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) family of mini-computers, MUMPS is a general-purpose programming language that supports a native hierarchical database. Over the years, countless healthcare applications have been written in MUMPS, and volumes of important information reside within those applications.

To leverage the value of this information, IQware HCIS can share data with MUMPS applications by directly accessing the on-disk records created and used by the MUMPS applications. In addition, IQware HCIS can also interface with MUMPS applications by dynamically launching a MUMPS-coded “agent” to access the requested data records on an as-needed basis. And finally, IQware HCIS can connect to MUMPS applications by dynamically copying MUMPS data records to its internal relational database.

The bottom line: IQware HCIS allows modern-structured applications and relational database tools be used on the data contained in legacy MUMPS applications—and that can facilitate better patient care.

Please click here to learn more about the IQware MUMPS Interface.