MDPro software has the baked-in ability to advance, grow and change with you ...

Unmatched Flexibility
Buying Practice Management software is like buying a new house or car: only after a few months do you know what you really need. MD Professional is set apart from all other solutions by the ease with which you can tailor the application post-production. Changes are easily made, ranging from simple look-and-feel to complex clinical and administrative workflows.

Because MD Professional is built on Object Technologies, changes are quick and simple to make and can immediately and transparently flow through to all users. That is, changes flow across all related processes in a single department or office, or across a complete multi-office or large clinical environment. This level of flexibility can speed implementations since we can implement then tailor rather than striving for the “perfect implementation” first. We also have a future-proofed solution poised to embrace change rather than resist it.

Optometry is changing and MD Professional is changing with it

From the Daily Bulletin - University of Waterloo, Jan. 2006
Optometry records going electronic

Two years of work are starting to bring results this week for Maher Shinouda of UW's school of optometry, as he trains instructors there in how to use how what he has dubbed the Electronic Optometric Medical Record. In another few days, students will be using it as well.

The EOMR is an electronic replacement for the paper file in which an optometrist traditionally makes note of a patient's personal data, eye measurements, visual ability and prescriptions. The UW optometry clinic has tens of thousands of such records in colour-coded folders, crammed into metal shelves in a back room.

Shinouda -- with a background in veterinary medicine and then computer science -- was hired by the optometry school to lead its record-keeping into the computer age. Similar things are happening in other branches of health care, as Electronic Medical Records are starting to exist in doctors' offices, and health informatics experts are looking ahead to a comprehensive Electronic Health Record for each individual that would include everything from x-rays to prescriptions. "To provide future optometrists with a contemporary education," he says, "it is important that they are trained using the methodologies and equipment that they will encounter in practice." ...

Paper records can get lost, or be stuck on somebody's desk when somebody else needs to look at them, Shinouda (right) explained in a seminar he gave in November introducing the system to faculty members, and another talk for the Waterloo Institute for Health Informatics Research.

And there's more: Handwriting can be unclear, and it's just about impossible to search paper records, let alone collect data about a large number of patients. Electronic records are the answer, he says. Yes, practitioners (and instructors) may have to "leave our comfort zone" and work in a somewhat new way, he admits -- but he insists that in the end, electronic records will help improve healthcare delivery as a whole.

The new system is being introduced gradually. Computers were installed during the fall term in the "pre-clinic" area where first-year and second-year students learn clinical techniques. Within a few days, they'll start using them to fill out the first part of an EOMR as they learn a variety of examination techniques. "They'll learn one part of the system this semester," says Shinouda, "and we'll build on that."

As students learn to use it, the system will be evaluated for usability and performance, and issues such as server load, security and privacy will be studied. Implementation in the public clinics is "perhaps a year away", says Shinouda, depending on the outcome of the pre-clinic experience. Detailed planning is still to be done for converting existing paper records to electronic form.