Practice Fusion debuts Online Patient Check-In feature

Patients can submit info to doctors, including symptons and medical history, before the appointment

Electronic Health Record (EHR) service Practice Fusion had been working for years to make it easier for doctors to access patient records, with features that include charting, scheduling, e-prescribing, messaging, lab integration options, and document managing.

Now it is looking to help out the other person in that equation: the patient.

Practice Fusion announced a brand new feature called Online Patient Check-In on Tuesday. The new service allows patients to complete traditional check-in forms from their phone, tablet, or computer before getting to the doctor’s office.

This will allow the patient to deliver pertinent information before they visit, including medical history, demographics, insurance information, and reasons for the visit. That form will them be automatically sent to their doctor, and incorporated into their record. Doctors can also customize the check-in with questions specific to their practice, as well as specialty-specific questions. 

Why is all of this important? It is because doctors, as you probably have noticed, are pretty busy. On average, they only spent 18 seconds (!) with a patient before they start doing their thing. You try explaining all of your symptoms, and everything else you need to tell your doctor in that amount of time!

"We actively work with providers to find ways to impact patient care and office workflow. When we took a look at pain points in the office, we discovered paper check-in forms had 2 glaring weaknesses," Ryan Howard, Practice Fusion CEO told me in an interview.

"One is that they take a huge amount of resources to get re-keyed into the system due to the sheer volume of paperwork (which is error prone), and the other is that crucial patient information is not always available by the time the provider sees the patient, so the patient has to quickly to recant all the information they just filled out. With office visits on average being only 15 minutes, the more accurate and detailed information that can be collected and provided upfront can significantly improve patient-provider communication."

A recent study, cited by Practice Fusion, found that “three in ten sick Americans say that a doctor, nurse, or other health professional did not spend enough time with them." So now the doctor has access to all of that information before they even walk in the door. 

"Using Patient Fusion, patients can research over 30,000 verified medical providers and quickly book an appointment directly with the provider. Once the appointment has been confirmed by the office, the patient will receive an email to check-in through our secure HIPAA-compliant portal,"Howard explained. "Through their mobile device, the patient fills out fields that are set by the provider, which can be customized to reflect their specialty and workflow. Once complete, this information will automatically flow into the patients chart for the provider to review."

There is huge benefit to the doctor as well, who can now not only save time, but now doesn't have to write up huge reports, by memory, of what each patient told them. It saves time and, because it also reduces errors, perhaps lives as well.

And, hey, there's an environmental component to this too; Practice Fusion says it remove an estimated quarter of a billion pages of paper in 2015 alone.

"We estimate that Online Check-In will remove a quarter billion pages of patient forms in 2015. With an average of 5 minutes to re-key each form, practices will save over 4.5 million staff hours,"  said Howard.

Founded in 2005, Practice Fusion provides a free, web-based EMR system to physician, complete with medical charting, scheduling, e-prescribing (eRx), lab integrations, referral letters, Meaningful Use certification, unlimited support and a Personal Health Record for patients.

It has over 112,000 medical professionals, in more than 50 specialties, on the platform. It has connected over 400 partners and over 80 million patient records. 

"Before Practice Fusion, electronic health record systems were cost very prohibitive (set up costs upwards of $30k + ongoing maintenance fees) to small and mid-size practices. As a result, the majority of these practices are still on paper and 10 years behind the current technology," said Howard. 'With Practice Fusion’s free cloud based platform, we bridge that gap by enabling providers to connect with over 70,000 pharmacies and over 450 labs/imaging partners."

The company has raised over $157 million in funding, from investors that have included SharesPost Investment Management, Citizen.VC, Qualcomm Ventures, ARTIS Ventures, Longitude Capital, Band of Angels, Industry Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

"Our mission is to connect doctors, patients and data to drive better health and save lives. Practice Fusion’s vision is to reach and serve every patient in the US by 2020. We currently have over 100 million patient records on the platform, making Practice Fusion the largest physician-patient platform in the United States," Howard told me.

"We aim to digitize every aspect of healthcare and releasing patient intake is a huge step due to the check-in being one of the biggest dependencies of paper use."