Medsphere Systems Corporation, a provider of “open” EHR solutions, introduced OpenVista NoteAssist, a new clinical documentation tool. To give clinicians greater flexibility and control, NoteAssist streamlines the process of compiling patient data and incorporating it into various types of documentation such as progress notes and discharge summaries by remembering user preferences and text input between both user sessions and individual notes.
OpenVista NoteAssist Overview
Using NoteAssist, clinicians can read and create documents on the desktop or on the go via iPad. For document designers, NoteAssist templates are powerful tools that simplify and standardize oft used notes, saving clinicians time while still producing high quality documents. NoteAssist templates enable users to click or touch common choices, chart by exception and type or speak patient notes. Users can automatically pull forward sections from previous notes with citations for viewing or inclusion in progress notes and discharge summaries, eliminating the need to search historical notes to complete a document.
NoteAssist documents are easily readable in Medsphere’s OpenVista® EHR, in a browser or on an iPad, and in PDF preview and printed form. NoteAssist also produces any document as plain text for compatibility with legacy systems and HL7 interfaces.
Medsphere developed NoteAssist in collaboration with Silver Hill Hospital, a behavioral health hospital client in New Canaan, Connecticut. The initial use cases of NoteAssist were developed for Silver Hill’s discharge summary workflow, and the application is currently live and in use at the hospital.
Medsphere’s OpenVista is the commercialized version of both the VistA EHR created and developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Resource and Patient Management System (RPMS, also a VistA derivative) developed by the Indian Health Service (IHS). Using open source code available from the VA and IHS through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), OpenVista can be implemented much more quickly and affordably than traditional proprietary solutions.