Hospital Rounds

 

                                                          

 

 

 

APPLICATION DESCRIPTION   

 

Hospital Rounds is an iPhone application designed and programmed by a neurologist for use by physicians, nurses, and other medical personel who make rounds on patients in the hospital on a regular basis.  With a minimum of touches the user can quickly enter patient information, make keyboard or audio notes, and enter billing information which can be transmitted back to the office for billing.  Color coding shows at a glance which patients still need to be seen or still need to have dictation done.  A File Control interface allows the user to save backups of the primary Database, create Database or Text Sign-Out Files, and create several different types of Billing Files.  These can then be transferred via WiFi connections to desktop or laptop computers for archiving or for secure EMail transfer to the desired recipients.  Sample screen shots are shown below:

 

 

   

 

 

The first screen shot shows the opening view.  Location background color is red if the patient is yet to be seen, yellow if seen but not yet dictated, and green if both seen and dictated.  The Diagnosis background color is white if there are no notes, green if there is a keyboard note, yellow if there is an audio note, and red if there are both keyboard and audio notes.  The center screen shot is the patient information view.  The right screen shot is the patient billing view.  On this view the Date background color is green if dictation has been done for that service and red if not yet done.  The Diagnosis background color is green if billing formation has been sent and red if it has not yet been sent. 

 

As you have probably noticed, there are control buttons at the top right of each table view.  The Plus button allows you to enter new records for each table, and the Minus button allows you to delete records.  The Options button gives addition options as described below.

 

 

 

          

These three screen shots show control views.  The left view shows the Edit Settings page.  User Name and Initials information is used for identifying output files and EMail.  The Use Passcode and Change Passcode options allow you to enable Passcode protection for the program.  The EMail Billing Address is the default address where you would like billing information to be sent, though this can be easily changed to any contacts you may already have.  FTP information is needed for WiFi File Transfers.  The center view shows the four options for creating files.  The right screen shows the interface for exporting files.  A very similar view allows for importing files.

 

Several things are unique to this patient tracking program.  Audio notes are unlimited in length and are included inSignOut files.  You can transmit a SignOut file to a colleague who, if he or she is also using Hospital Rounds, can then easily append the records from the SignOut file to his or her list of patients already being followed.  Billing files are easily created that can be securely Emailed or directly WiFi transferred to your billing secretaries.  We recommend that once Billing or SignOut files are created and transferred to your WiFi network that they be compressed with encryption and password protected for HIPAA compliance. 

 

For the most part the program is self explanatory.  Options to export SignOut or Billing information with Last Name Initial Only are for HIPAA compliance if you do not have secure EMail or direct transfer available.  WiFi transfer of files is the most difficult part of the program.  Files can be exported by WiFi HTTP by just being on a WiFi network and running Internet Explorer or Safari and following the HTTP file transfer instructions.  To export or import files via WiFi FTP you will need to install an FTP server on at least one of the computers on your WiFi

network.  We recommend using either Pure FTPd Manager on Macs or FileZilla on PCs.  When you set up your FTP server you will need to enter an FTP username and password which should be set the same using Edit Settings in Hospital Rounds.  You will need to know the IP address of the computer you are transferring To and From when doing FTP transfers.  This can be obtained on Mac computers under System Preferences / Network Status information.  On PCs, use Control Panel / Network Connections / Local Area Connection, and the IP

Address will be listed under details.  Finally, we recommend that you create a /Rounds directory on the WiFi for transferring files.  Under Hospital Rounds Edit Settings you should set the FTP directory to either /Rounds or Rounds (some networks may or may not require the /) and you should be ready to do FTP transfers.  You can read the FTP server console window to determine any errors that may occur with transfers.  We have found that the most common errors are that the iPhone is not on the desired network or that the FTP server is not running on the desired computer.  On the FTP server side you should make certain that you have given rights to read and write for the FTP directory.  Otherwise file transfers usually go without difficulty.

 

A brief disclaimer is probably in order.  This program is not meant to be an Electronic Medical Record.  There is no structured input for medical information.  Keyboard and Audio notes are meant for reminders regarding the patients being followed, but are not meant to keep detailed records.  Usually we export our database about once a week just in case it is needed for future reference, but as patients are discharged and billing is completed they are usually permanently deleted from the database.  For this reason patients and diagnoses are not sortable alphabetically.  Records are sorted by location alphabetically, which keeps patients at the same location clustered together in the table to make it easier to see that they have all been seen location by location.