MacPractice has officially announced the release of MacPractice MD, DDS, DC and 20/20 v4.1.3 with Lion and Snow Leopard compatibility.

Networks hosting MacPractice can have a mix of Lion and Snow Leopard computers with MacPractice 4.1.3. This updated version of the software has been introduced to several hundred MacPractice clients over the past several months, and MacPractice is now offering the software to new users. Current users of earlier versions of MacPractice 4.1 will also receive an electronic alert over the coming weeks that MacPractice 4.1.3 is now available for download.

In addition to the added Lion compatibility, MacPractice 4.1.3 features payment plans and an ordering system, which have been added to the core products and will benefit all users. Many additional features have been added throughout MacPractice 4.1 as it has evolved to 4.1.3 including responses to suggestions from MacPractice’s 26,000 users representing 11,000 providers.

“With the release of Lion a few months ago, it became our priority to make our unique line of products compatible,” said Mark Hollis, President of MacPractice. “MacPractice strives to be on the cutting edge of technology and innovation, so we constantly develop our products to best meet the evolving needs of our clients. We are already working on the next update to MacPractice, which we expect to release in December.”

A minimum of 4GB of RAM is required to operate MacPractice with Lion. 4GB of RAM is also recommended for optimal use of MacPractice on a terminal with Snow Leopard.

MacPractice leverages Apple’s legendary ease of use, stability and low-cost maintenance to create affordable, intuitive and flexible Mac-native software for doctors. The software, currently used in 3,800 practices, combines a low-cost, highly customizable and flexible ONC-ATCB 2011-2012 Certified EHR/EMR solution with practice management tools in an easy-to-use, intuitive system that can improve patient care, efficiency and productivity.

Select Data, Inc. has announced their new iPad application offering for use in the home health market. Developed to enable clinicians to document in a more expedient manner, the iPad bridges the clinical data capture gap between traditional paper methods of documentation and utilizing point of care devices in the field. The application was developed under the guise of home health industry leaders with years of experience in implementing field devices. Leaders include executive level down to the day-to-day users of the various methods of capturing data.

Unique to the iPad offering is the ability to capture data to a web-based solution even without connectivity and upload when connectivity is present. Clinicians are able to receive updates to forms on the iPad as they become available without the need to sync a device on a daily basis, and entire patient records are no longer required to be downloaded to the device before making visits for the day, greatly minimizing HIPAA exposure.

Jeff Brittain, CTO said “What makes our iPad application unique is that we took our approach to capturing clinical information in the field and applied it to a true iPad application. This application allows a clinician to work offline as well as online using current forms and formats familiar to them, not requiring a constant internet connection like some EMR vendors. This approach leverages true HTML5 language allowing us to also to provide support to standard laptop clients as well as future support for Android devices.”

Practice Fusion shared insight into its road map for the year ahead, including development of a native iPad application with top design firm, Cooper, during Practice Fusion Connect 2011. Members of the medical community from across the country joined Practice Fusion for the sold out event, the company’s second annual user conference in San Francisco.

Alan Cooper, known as the “Father of Visual Basic” and a frequent author on usability, appeared on stage during the event to show an early prototype of the company’s iPad application. The Cooper design team began working on the mobile application during the summer. The first version of the free iPad EHR system will be released in 2012. In addition, the company revealed plans for simplifying e-prescribing, launching doctor websites and moving to a new office in downtown San Francisco.

“When we started Practice Fusion, the market was cluttered with EHR options that were expensive and took a long time to implement,” said Ryan Howard, CEO and Founder of Practice Fusion. “By offering a fast and free solution, Practice Fusion has gained a major advantage in the market. 2011 was a big year for us and we have even bigger plans for next year. We are focused on bringing the best free technology to every doctor and nurse.”

“The next two and a half years will be very important for EHRs with adoption being driven by current government incentives,” said Peter Thiel, a managing partner at Founders Fund, co-founder and former chairman and CEO of PayPal, and the first investor and board member of Facebook. “Practice Fusion has the potential to be the platform company in the electronic record space, and that’s going to be an unbelievably important place to be; they will transform health outcomes for the better.”

Redpine Healthcare Technologies Inc. announced the availability of its iPad compatible cloud-based Practice Management and Electronic Health Record system for chiropractors.

Redpine is taking chiropractic mobile with the release of its iPad compatible cloud based EHR and PM system for chiropractors. This release will give chiropractors an alternative to traditional notepads or clipboards.

According to a Manhattan Research study, 30 percent of U.S. physicians own an iPad and another 28 percent intend to purchase one before the end of the year. “This initiative became a priority based on feedback and requests directly from the Chiropractic community.  As a result, we made the iPad initiative a priority and we’re very excited by the positive response,” said Shad Wheeler, president of Redpine Healthcare Technologies Inc.

Unlike many applications, this is actually the complete Redpine system running through the browser with the newest Apple OS on the iPad2 — and it runs like a native application. As a result, doctors and their staff get the complete functionality of the system versus a sub-set of features as often is the norm in other iPad applications.

Redpine’s new release provides secure access by way of password and encryption so chiropractors and their staff can get access to all of their practice and patient information from almost anywhere. Redpine’s administrative and financial capabilities are fully integrated to help provide seamless transactions from scheduling though documentation and charge capture, which when combined with Redpine’s ChiroCollector billing services, accelerates reimbursements, reduces denials and frees up the doctor and their staff to focus on treating patients and building the practice.

Stephanie Strandberg, Redpine’s product manager stated: “Since we are a cloud based platform, our clients have always had the ability to access the Redpine PM/EHR system from almost anywhere; however, until now they’ve been limited to laptops or desktops. Our goal is to give our clients the ability to access their entire office from the device of their choice, and our initial focus has been the iPad because of the demand from the chiropractor community.”

VitalHealth EHR on an iPad

VitalHealth Software has announced that Healthy Transformation, a provider of health coaching and lifestyle management services, has selected the VitalHealth EHR solution in an effort to reduce employer healthcare costs by improving employee quality of life through preventative healthcare and wellness training and education.

Healthy Transformation offers a cutting edge, holistic approach to healthcare, providing one-on-one health and wellness coaching in a corporate setting. Healthy Transformation’s corporate health and wellness program focuses on the prevention and maintenance of chronic conditions through education and coaching, improving the personal health and well-being of client’s employees and therefore decreasing healthcare costs at the corporate level.

Based on extensive research and developed with intellectual property licensed from Mayo Clinic, VitalHealth’s EHR technology platform was designed to be extremely easy to use with an intuitive, customizable interface that supports physicians and nurses in their highly-varied workflow needs, offering point-of-care decision support, smart alerts, population and disease management, and electronic lab ordering and resulting. The VitalHealth EHR is also one of the first platforms designed specifically for use with an Apple iPad® as well as other tablet formats, laptops and desktops.

“We are focused on helping corporations increase productivity and lower healthcare costs by providing employees with one-on-one health and wellness coaching, and arming our health coaches with the VitalHealth EHR will enable them to provide the highest quality coaching with maximum flexibility and mobility, ” said Ronda DeDear, RN and CEO, Healthy Transformation. “The EHR’s ability to track chronic conditions along with its customizable and intuitive nature, allow our health coaches to easily catalogue and share patient information between different practitioners and more importantly, to effectively supply patients with the highest quality of preventive care possible. Plus, when our coaches are moving from site to site, and working from the home or the road, they can always have the EHR in hand.”

With VitalHealth EHR’s flexible interface, Healthy Transformation health coaches, consisting of RNs, nutritionists, social workers and education specialists, will be able to seamlessly access and share the different facets of patient information they require while also maintaining a holistic view of the patient’s medical record. Furthermore, VitalHealth EHR’s longitudinal patient tracking and display capabilities provide a complete view of patients’ health over time, allowing the health coaches to treat chronic conditions more effectively. Furthering Healthy Transformation’s goal of disease prevention, the EHR provides disease management automation tools which identify and alert the health coaches and their clients of potential threats, based on available data.

“Healthy Transformation is very much like the small practices we designed the VitalHealth EHR to support: they need a flexible solution that can support a wide range of work styles while still delivering the highest levels of EHR and disease management functionality,” said Laurens van der Tang, CEO, VitalHealth. “Now more than ever it is critical for corporations to take care of their employees, and that requires quality patient care with a personal touch. VitalHealth is thrilled that our EHR technology platform can assist in Healthy Transformation’s mission to provide a one-on-one, holistic approach to patient care in a corporate setting.”

As part of this new agreement, Healthy Transformation will participate in VitalHealth’s EHR pilot program. Throughout the trial period, the health coaches using the platform will provide VitalHealth with ongoing feedback on the EHR technology.

The VitalHealth EHR recently received ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 Meaningful Use Certification as a Complete EHR. Healthy Transformation went live with VitalHealth EHR early this fall.

me2me AG, the developers of the Frisbee Transcription Workflow  & Dictation Solution with Speech Recognition announced today that they release Frisbee Smartfor iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch®, a new app that turns the smartphone into a digital dictation device, making dictation available to all Frisbee solutions users but also to other professional digital dictation solutions.

Frisbee Smart allows physicians, lawyers, experts, journalists and many others whose work requires them to be away from their PCs to enjoy the benefits of an advanced digital dictation workflow solution, even while on the go. me2me’s Frisbee Smart app enables users to dictate from any place allowing users to send audio files to be transcribed. Since this app turns the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into a wireless digital dictation device, users send their dictation to the transcriptionist of their choice or to an FTP server, using one of the multiple data transfer protocols available or a simple WIFI connection.

“Our easy to use functionalities provide professionals the capabilities of using the mobile device the same way they utilized their traditional digital dictation device but also includes a full set of innovative features such as overwriting/inserting dictations; four selectable audio quality, all optimized for speech recognition; voice activation for hands free dictation; Bluetooth™ headset compatibility, allowing free movement; file size control, in order not to exceed the maximum file size of the receiving mailbox; and a range of languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian” said Daniel Hall, CTO of me2me.

In addition, Frisbee Smart app includes features such as:

• Lossless compression method
• Optional Barcode scanner to allow a barcode to be automatically assigned to the opened dictation
• Easy-to-use touch screen controls

Frisbee Smart can also be integrated directly with electronic health record (EHR) systems professionals to dictate directly into the EHR application to increase their own productivity.

“The iPhone has become a mobile business tool for many professionals who want to use it for dictation purposes, in order to avoid carrying multiple devices and to cut costs” said Peter Hauser, CEO of me2me AG.  “We are very excited to offer a solution that allows iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users to access a solution that easily integrates with Frisbee, our base dictation workflow system. We are also very proud to announce that Frisbee Smart can be used by any professional who wants to dictate with the iPhone but works with another digital dictation solution. Thanks to the Frisbee Converter, a small piece of software that works in conjunction with Frisbee Smart, audio files can be converted into the correct audio format utilized by other digital dictation software companies”.

me2me offers users the ability to try the Frisbee Smart application before purchasing it.  The free version of Frisbee Smart can be downloaded from the App Store. The free version is limited to 5 dictations of 30 seconds each. The full version of Frisbee Smart can be purchased at any time from one of me2me ’s certified partners.

ScribeAmerica, LLC is introduing what they claim is  the world’s first mobile Scribe App™ for use with iPhone® and iPad®.  This exclusive app launches the Physician Productivity Tool™, Scribe Evaluation Tool™, Scribe 101™, and Doc Talk™.

The app is available now in the iTunes™ app store for 99 cents.

The Physician Productivity Tool allows the physician-scribe team to measure its productivity by recording the number of patients treated, admitted, discharged, and the number of intubations, central lines and critical-care notes documented. Administrators can measure the economic value of the physician-scribe pairing at the point of service, thus allowing for optimization of provider-staffing schedules. The Scribe Evaluation Tool enables physicians to evaluate their scribe on five performance indicators including punctuality, professional appearance, ability, proficiency, and patient flow management.

Scribe 101 provides scribes with medical procedure notes, medications, and medical terminology. The Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), Core Measures, and a quick reference E&M Table reviewing the number of elements needed to code a level 1 through level 5 medical chart are emphasized. Scribe 101 also allows the scribe to customize an ED Directory and engage Doc Talk, an interactive game scribes can play to reinforce their medical vocabulary and the nuanced language of oral medical discourse.

eDoctor™has announced the debut of their new mobile electronic prescribing application for the Android platform. The application allows certified healthcare providers to prescribe electronically from a mobile tablet device, freeing doctors and staff from reliance on an office-bound computer. The application is ready for download.

“The Android application allows doctors and staff to prescribe on the go from an Android device with greater than 5” screen size for an optimal experience,” said Se Kang, President of eDoctor™. “Now our clients can choose to e-prescribe from their Android or iPad mobile platform.”

Similar to its iPad application, eDoctor™’s Android application offers a Surescripts-certified, MIPPA-compliant electronic prescribing solution noted for its flexibility, ease of use, and unlimited technical support. Available free for existing clients, eDoctor™’s solution delivers unlimited use of the standalone e-prescribing system that qualifies medical practices for Medicare rebates. The Android application provides healthcare professionals with numerous features designed to enhance patient safety and office efficiency.

Features include managed care formularies, mail-orders, and patient drug history via Surescripts Medication History, as well as a customizable favorite medication and pharmacy list. Drug-to-drug, drug-to-allergy, and additional checks are also provided. eDoctor™’s e-prescribing solution includes unlimited access to technical support and online interactive training.

I did another check of iPad EMR and EHR apps available for download in the iTunes App Store and found the total has grown to 64.   While the number of apps has grown many of the them appear to have little to no activity.

When I last checked the number of iPad apps available from the iTunes App Store at the end of last year there were 26 apps available for download.

Most of the apps remain free but there are 13 that have prices ranging from $4.99 to $99.99.  I checked the reviews of the paid apps as a way of trying to gauge overall activity.  The largest number of reviews for any single paid app was only 34 and that was for a product that was one of the original EHR iPad apps in the store.

The App Store doesn’t release actual sales numbers but OSXDaily has come up with an “it’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing” formula for estimating sales by using the number of reviews.  Their formula is:  Number of Reviews x 30 x Price = Estimated App Sales Volume in $.

As an example one of the EHR products has a total of 16 reviews and sells for $44.99.  Applying the OSXDaily formula gives a sales estimate of $21,592 (30 x 16 x $44.99) for the app.  While that’s not enough revenue to build a business on most iPad apps are developed by companies that produce multiple products.

With any of these apps it’s buyer beware.  The developers have websites, but many provide no obvious methods of product support. Some sites appear to have been quickly thrown together only to satisfy a requirement for a developer website, with no useful information available.  If you’re going to try one of these apps check out the developer website first – try contacting them to see you can get a response.    It’s not just the money spent on the app – there’s also the time involved in seeing whether or not it has any value.  Investing an hour figuring out that your free or cheap app doesn’t work raises the cost to you significantly.

If there are any iPad app developers out there reading this I’d love to hear your thoughts on the OSXDaily formula.