By Leon Q. Barzin, MMS Director: Health Information Technology
Need to contact a fellow member? Send secure patient information
from your phone or tablet to a staff member’s desktop computer? Avoid
redundant in-person consultations? DocbookMD, the free smartphone,
tablet, and desktop app, may be just the thing.
Since its launch in summer 2013, more than 600 MMS members have
exchanged more than 16,000 clinical messages. This free application
uses advanced technology to send HIPAA-secure text messages, images
(such as wounds, X-rays, and EKGs), or other patient information to your
physician colleagues or members of your patient care team. All the
information is saved on secure servers for the required 10 years.
Nothing is retained on the phone itself, keeping the information
completely secure from theft or loss.
Physicians can invite nurses, physician assistants, and other office
staff to join them on DocbookMD, using the CareTeam feature. Physicians
remain at the center of patient care and can use DocbookMD to
coordinate care across any type of practice setting, independently of
your EHR. Physicians control who they invite into the conversation and
who can send them messages.
DocbookMD was created by two married physicians after their first
anniversary dinner was interrupted. The husband, an orthopedic surgeon,
was summoned to the ER to decide whether or not a patient needed surgery
(the patient did not). That consultation could have been avoided if the
physician had been able to see the patient’s X-ray and an image of the
wound on his phone.
As a user of DocbookMD, you can look up any current MMS member by
name or specialty and create a “favorites” list of frequent contacts.
The member list is updated weekly and a directory of local pharmacies is
included.
DocbookMD is a free benefit, available to MMS members through the
Apple App Store and Google Play, where you can download, install, and
activate your account.
General information is available here. For MMS questions, please email info@massmed.org or call (800) 322-2303, ext. 7311. DocbookMD support is available at (888) 447-3707, opt 5.
This is the first in an occasional series of articles from the
Committee on Information Technology about autonomous tech that
physicians can use in their clinical lives.
