Physik's
EPOC Pages - flyTERM & EMIS
I'm not a general practitoner (family physician) myself, but I am often jealous of the information technology that they get to play with. General practice computer systems seem to be miles ahead of their hospital equivalents for a variety of reasons. This article describes how you can gain remote access to an EMIS computerised practice management system using an EPOC (Psion) PDA and a (mobile) phone.
Safe access to all your practice data whilst on-the-road ... is this possible ? Do you use the market-leading EMIS software package (www.emis-online.com) in your practice ? Have you ever thought how useful it would be to access the full EMIS system when out and about ? Now you can consult, view / print prescriptions and book appointments during home visits. You can also perform searches, generate reports and answer internal emails whilst on the move or at home. All this is possible using an EPOC (Psion) PDA with “flyTERM” and a (mobile) phone to connect into your practice EMIS system.
flyTERM & the EMIS front page
EMIS systems allow remote access via a modem connection. By installing flyTERM on your Psion Revo, Series 5MX, Series 7, netBook or Ericsson MC218, you can have a terminal screen looking and feeling like your practice terminal. The advantages of remote / mobile access are obvious and achieving this with a laptop PC is already possible. However, EPOC (Psion) machines have the additional advantages of cheaper price, smaller size, lower weight, increased robustness, much longer battery life, a touch screen and instant start-up/shut-down.
Disadvantages such as smaller screen-sizes are overcome by the use of standard scroll bars or by the increasingly popular option of scrolling the screen around by dragging it with the pointer (as seen in the Adobe Acrobat Reader for example). If you prefer this option and feel that you don’t need the scrollbars any more, then you can just de-select them and give yourself more screen space. Additional navigation aids such as an “auto-cursor” should increase efficiency, but can be disabled if the user prefers. Function keys are emulated in two different ways and there is the facility to store frequently used texts, which can then be reproduced at a single stroke.
flyTERM & the EMIS main menu
Installation
FlyTERM is installed via the standard PsiWin installation programme delivered with your EPOC (Psion) PDA. The first time that you start, it will enter "Quick Setup" mode and ask a few simple questions:
# Telephone Number = the number of your modem attached to your EMIS system.
# Store Settings = choose a file name and location to store the settings file.
# Connection = a choice of modem types including Infra-Red for linking to suitable mobile phones (such as the Nokia 7110 & 8810, the Ericsson SH888 or 6xx, 7xx series with the DI27 adapter, the Motorola L7089 series and the Siemens S25 series).
You then need to visit the “Transfer” menu and the “Terminal Mode” sub-menu in order to find the “Terminal Type” option and change this to “EMIS”.
Dial-Up
Now you should be ready to dial. Enable your InfraRed port on the mobile phone. (The mobile phone will disable it again after a few seconds to save it batteries if you don’t use it !) Now connect by clicking the top toolbar button. You should see a message on the PDA and on the mobile phone. The call will take up to 10-12 seconds to get running and then you should see the standard EMIS log-in messages on the PDA screen.
flyTERM & the EMIS appointments planner
Transfer of Data
You should not expect the same speed of operation as you will have when in your practice. Speed is mostly limited by data transfer rates available over the mobile networks at present. However, new technologies will be available soon and will improve the performance of flyTERM drastically (for example www.nokia.com/phones/cardphone2_0/).
Editing of Data
Much of the data entry for EMIS is done via the keyboard “Function” keys and this was an important consideration when flyTERM was written. Function keys are emulated in two different ways. One method is simply to press Ctrl-Fn-number on the EPOC (Psion) PDA to produce the equivalent Fn-number command in EMIS. The other method involves screen toolbars which are pre-set to simulate Function commands, but can also be edited to simulate any other EMIS commands or even reproduce stored text that you may need to enter on a frequent basis.
There is a feature in flyTERM which can be very useful or a real pain if you do not understand it ! The feature is called "Auto Cursor" and its usefulness depends on what is being displayed on the screen and your style of working. When it is enabled, it will automatically follow the blinking cursor by scrolling the screen. This will mean that if EMIS suddenly moves the cursor to the bottom of the screen (for example when you were previously entering data at the top) then flyTERM will suddenly scroll away from where you were before. This feature can be enabled or disabled very easily from the toolbar at the top of the screen.
flyTERM & an EMIS consultation menu
Disconnecting
To disconnect, it is probably wise to log-out of EMIS first and then just click on the same connect / disconnect button as before. You should see a message on the PDA and also on the mobile phone showing you that the connection has now been dropped.
Summary
With flyTERM running on an EPOC (Psion) PDA you can quickly and easily access your full EMIS system whilst out and about. You can access patient notes and write / print-out prescriptions during home visits. You can also book and modify appointments. You can prepare / run audits and generate other reports from EMIS data. You can even modify templates and protocols (which is not yet possible on the PC laptop version of EMIS). You can update practice notes and send internal emails whilst on the move. The advantages of remote / mobile access to a computerised practice management system are many and mostly obvious. With flyTERM this becomes a realistic possibility using an EPOC (Psion) PDA.
flyTERM & an EMIS medical record
Try-Out & Purchasing Information
FlyTERM is a fully functional shareware programme available for download from www.newnet-marketing.de. To remove the shareware "reminder" messages you should register the program for $25 via RegSoft or Handango (see same website for details). You will then receive a registration code, which once entered will remove the reminder messages and display your name at the top of the screen.
Company Details
FlyTERM was originally developed in Germany for the DAVID software widely used in medical practices there. Since then it has become the standard software used by many system managers when accessing their networking servers whilst on the move. FlyTERM has recently been taken over by NewNet Marketing (www.newnet-marketing.de), which should allow several related products to be released in the near future.
If you would like to see similar software for remote access of another (non-EMIS) practice management systems, then why not get in touch via info@newnet-marketing.de ?