Dr. Watson's practice installed the Agency software to automate searches of patient records and provide alerts/summaries before appointments. This made the staff more efficient and helped meet "meaningful use" standards. Agency analyzes records using predefined queries and topics of interest to provide fast, customized summaries and alerts. It works at night to prepare this information. The staff found their searches became more efficient with automated, personalized results and links for patients. PMAlerts offers the Agency software and hosts a site for clinicians to create and share useful query/app templates to help other practices.

1. PubMedAlerts.com
How can its alerts make the whole EMR world function
better?
A story of one medical practice, how it got more efficient,
and quickly moved ahead in the “meaningful use” game.

2. In the beginning
Dr. Watson’s clinical staff wished they
could get accurate and up to date
information on each appointment, to
better plan their day.
They tried searching multiple data bases
for the latest patient data, then adding
clinical support data for good stuff that
was relevant to the case history.
It took forever!!! Just searching one
patient portal took way too long in a busy
practice. Searches had to be better
automated.

3. How to automate search?
One day, Dr. Watson asked Mr. Holmes, “Say, old boy,
how do I make sure that, for each patient expected in
the surgery tomorrow, I have the most up to date
information about each of their conditions?”
“That’s elementary, dear chap!” said Holmes, “Just use the
Agency engine to probe their EMR data, downloading
the queries you need from PMAlerts. That will get you
task-specific links to the EMR before each appointment,
plus alerts on related news and decision support.”

4. So help came from Agency
Dr. Watson’s office installed Agency near (or in) its EMR
system, and used its Java WAR file to configure and
administer secure access to the relevant clinical data.
 Agency comes ultimately from PMAlerts, its customer
support web site. We offer technical specs and training
for installers, making needed IT support straightforward
PMAlerts also provides libraries of sophisticated queries
and JSP apps for common clinician and practice needs.
They got Dr. Watson up and running overnight.

5. Agency works mostly at night
(Its Analysis Engine and Apps help EMR users “work smarter”)

6. Here’s your data, Dr. Watson!
Once Agency support was in place, the office staff
soon decided that the mystery of which search
automation tool to use had been pleasantly resolved!
Before a patient arrived, clinical staff could plan the
visit. Dr. Watson got summaries specific to exam
types, with links to key clinical data and notes - a big
head start.
All clinical staff got more efficient and perceptive
from low key alerts. Patients were also better
informed, and got personalized lists of public web
links to explore further.

7. How does Agency work?
(It does topic-matching, based on a semantic searches)
For each patient, all appropriate clinical notes and
records are read and analyzed using pre-defined
questions or key topics of interest, in a complex query
known as an Agent
That analysis is persistently saved. It lets very fast and
detailed indexing be done by and for local web apps,
each focused on supplying summaries and/or triggering
alerts.
Similar analyses for PubMed abstracts, decision support
aids, clinical trial recruitments, quality measure
checklists, etc. allow Agency to suggest and rank matches
based on common topic patterns, as Dr. Watson deems

8. What can PMAlerts download?

9. Agency’s Open User Community
(On public web, PMAlerts supplies Agency queries & apps)
PMAlerts downloads the Agency Java software, but it also
hosts an end-user community web site, with networking
aids, a suite of curation and QA tools, and clinical support
Projects.
Each Project attracts a small crowd of tech-savvy clinicians
eager to author, QA and publish new Agency queries,
alerts and template web apps, typically as simple open-
source artifacts.
Many clinical specialties and practices need support, so
many Projects may exist. Each serves a body of clinical
end-users who hope they create new de facto standard HIT
tools. Many Projects will actually do this, or so we believe.

10. What does PMAlerts offer ME?
(Glad you asked! It depends on who you are)
Agency helps clinicians meet HITECH rules that EMRs
show meaningful use; makes new P4P incentives easier to
obtain; saves time; boosts your own clinical awareness
IT and administrators in hospital departments or clinics
can deploy new HIT applications using advanced
semantic queries – built with off-site tools and open
source labor
Vendors get competitive advantages, plus new revenues
as distribution partners for both PMAlerts and web
publishers of medical resources Agency helps end-users
locate.

11. Questions?
Of course you have questions!