Development of software and wireless technologies to document the physician-patient encounters required under the Medicare system is proposed. This software will simplify and render less time-consuming the laborious process of documentation, while at the same time, provide the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) all information needed to fully document the level and complexity of the encounter. An extensive series of easy-to-use, interconnected HTML data entry forms accessible via Internet server with Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) capabilities will provide data access in the office or at the bedside with hand held computing devices. The data entry pathway will depend on the type of patient visit and the nature of the medical problem; each potential pathway will be based on the precise HCFA document guidelines for each type and level of patient visit. Initial implementation and debugging will be based on laptop/desktop computer entry, however ultimate implementation will involve palm computers and media phones. Since the application is web server- based, changes to HCFA guidelines can be seamlessly incorporated into the software. Phase I effort includes design and development of the software, evaluation in two different medical practices, and investigation and preliminary testing of wireless data entry in a hospital environment.
The overall goal of the project is an innovative web-based software package that is expected to be useful to all physicians (private or hospital-based) caring for Medicare patients. The client base is therefore extremely large. Revised versions of the software (installed on the web) will follow changes in HCFA documentation guidelines. Ultimately, the software will be integrated with office tools such as touch-screen patient for 10 kiosk, hand-held computers, speech- recognition software and infrared technology for networking.
