Sioux Falls, Dec. 14, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- DocuTAP, a rapidly-growing technology company and American Family Care, a national network of medical clinics, announced today a record-time completion of a large scale Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and Practice Management (PM) implementation throughout American Family Care system of 34 facilities.
"It takes tremendous effort to ensure that a new technology platform is fully functional and operational in an advanced medical setting. Reaching this milestone implementation in record-time demonstrates a true partnership between DocuTAP and American Family Care and also speaks to the urgency that both leadership teams placed on the success of this project," said Eric McDonald, DocuTAP CEO and Founder.
"This was a true collaboration between American Family Care and DocuTAP. Our teams worked together to implement the new system without causing any interruptions to daily operations and patient care," said Glenn Harnett, M.D., and Chief Medical Officer of American Family Care. "In fact, we completed the implementation at our last 24 clinics in just eight weeks. We were up and running on the new EMR and Practice Management systems almost immediately after our staff were trained, and we experienced almost no downtime."
According to Harnett, everyone in healthcare management endeavors to minimize down time when adopting any new technology. "Automating our EMR system became critical to keeping pace with the growth of our business and remaining competitive," said D. Bruce Irwin, M.D., founder and CEO of American Family Clinics. He explained that, since patient data processing is a major component of patient care, transitioning to automated EMR and PM systems without interrupting day-to-day operations was a primary consideration when selecting the company that would handle the transition.
"The key to rapid implementation of EMR systems is listening to the clients and gaining a working knowledge of their internal processes, requirements and standards before the transition begins," said Tara Bradley, Director of Implementation at DocuTAP. By the time DocuTAP began installing American Family Care's EMR and PM software in April, they were able to anticipate where challenges in converting from their original data management systems might create downtime and find ways to preempt any issues that could arise from these challenges. "In that regard, we consider our clients as partners in the process."
The implementation team began by speaking with management and staff members who would become the primary users of the new system in order to determine the best plan of action for the most seamless transition. Bradley explained, "Once we had comprehensive knowledge of their needs, we put a great deal of care into customizing their system to best meet their procedural requirements, which enabled us to expedite implementation and minimize any delays in their operations."
DocuTAP and American Family Care agree that teamwork, under strong leadership and strategic direction, was the key to success in this implementation.
American Family Care is on an aggressive growth track, with up to 20 new clinics planned to open in 2013. American Family Care plans to continue using DocuTAP's solutions in all of its new clinics.
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About DocuTAP
DocuTAP began in May of 2000 in Sioux Falls, S.D. Since its inception, the company has seen impressive growth and serves a national customer base. DocuTAP's innovative workflow solution leads the industry in its level of integration and in its user-friendly, intuitive design that functions the way physicians think and practice. DocuTAP partners with customers to provide integrated EMR and practice management software, hardware, implementation and support in one powerfully simple turnkey solution. With unique, easy to use technology designed for urgent care, clinics can complete an entire patient visit from online check-in through billing in less time than ever. DocuTAP takes a partnership approach over the entire product lifecycle to ensure customer success. More information about DocuTAP and the other services they provide can be found at www.docutap.com.
About American Family Care
American Family Care is a network of medical clinics providing family care and urgent care services to patients needing medical attention for a large number of acute conditions, non-life threatening illness or injuries that their primary care physicians may be unavailable or unable to treat, or when an emergency room visit is not warranted. American Family Care is open seven days a week from 8:00am-6:00pm. No Appointment Necessary. For more information please visit www.americanfamilycare.com
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