Industry Insider is a timely chat with an ophthalmic industry thought leader.

Nextech develops several EHR software programs, including IntelleChartPRO, for use with ophthalmic practices. Jason Handza, DO, was named chief medical officer of Nextech this past August. Dr. Handza is the owner of Gulf Coast Retina Specialists in Palm Harbor, Fla., and is president of EyeReview LLC.

Ophthalmology Management: How does the Nextech EHR, IntelleChartPRO, help ophthalmologists be more productive?

Jason Handza, DO: When I think of physician productivity, I think of the interaction of doctor, patient and EHR, and that falls into three categories.

The first is how quickly a practitioner can review information and finish a patient chart. Upon seeing a returning patient, doctors need to very quickly remember why the patient is there, what happened at the previous visit and what they need to do today. IntelleChartPRO is developed to quickly compare multiple patient visits without needing to open or scroll through multiple windows; it’s an “all-in-one spot” for patient information.

Second is the speed of data entry, and IntelleChartPRO allows the cataloging of large amounts of pathology very quickly. We tend to view things in treatment as “number of clicks to finish a chart.” If we can save one minute per chart, and a doctor is seeing 60 patients a day, that frees up an extra hour.

Third is increasing productivity by assisting compliance and coding tools with IntelleChartPRO. The program’s assisted compliance tool ensures that, as you go through a patient’s chart, all of your quality measures are checked in real time so there are no surprises at the end of a month or year.

OM: How have EMRs evolved since Nextech’s founding in 1997?

JH: I think the first major shift was moving from the basis of a generalized, template-driven system designed by practice management companies to a specialty EHR designed for physicians. We consider IntelleChartPRO the “intelligent” EHR, and one of the reasons is our doctors can easily refine a “general ophthalmology” user profile to serve a specialty practice. Second was the big shift away from a client-server model of EHRs to the cloud-based system. With that, doctors can have access to patient data anytime and anywhere; IntelleChartPRO was the first ophthalmic EHR to be truly cloud-based, around 2008.

OM: Can you provide some insight into your work alongside Nextech’s development and sales teams to improve IntelleChartPRO?

JH: The focus of development should always be the needs of our doctors, administrators and support staff. I truly believe if you focus on this from the sales side, the product will sell itself. So, we need to continually engage our customers to understand their needs, so we can then design and implement the changes to have an impact on their day to day lives.

EHR has been a big addition to practices in the last 20 years, and many view it as an impediment to providing high quality care. We have to ask where are they struggling, what would they change — how do we bring the joy back to practicing medicine. We think IntelleChartPRO accomplishes that.

OM: As chief medical officer, what are some of your goals for Nextech?

JH: Aside from continually enhancing IntelleChartPRO and being a voice for our doctors, I want to continue pursuing the holy grail of seamless, integrated products, capable of offering solutions for all levels of practice. We’re having a lot of interactions with customers going through private equity acquisitions, and these organizations are getting larger and larger. That corresponds to their organizational needs being much more substantial and to exchange information more fluidly between different parts of an organization. OM