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NextGen Mobile on the iPad

Written by  Jason Pedersen
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drIPADOver the past year I have been really interested in mobile technology. We have all seen how it changes our daily lives.  It's an awesome technology that will continue to evolve and get better and better.

Because I work strictly in the healthcare industry as do most of you, I have been following NextGen Healthcare with where they are taking their business and what's new and exciting for users that use the EMR and EPM system daily.  One of the areas of development that I am really interested in right now is the NextGen Mobile solution.  This is a website that is optimized for mobile browsers like the iPad, iPhone and other mobile devices, that allow you to access some of the NextGen EMR features.  I would love to play with this on my iPad and see how it works, what you can do and what you can't do. Currently none of our clients use this system so I haven't been able to play with it.

Here is what NextGen Mobile has to offer its users:

  • Create quick notes
  • Document phone calls and patient visits
  • Tasking
  • Add and modify allergies, diagnoses, procedure
  • Patient Lookup - view only
  • View, prescribe, renew mediations,
  • Documents and Images - view only
  • Labs and order results - view only
  • PAQ - View, approve, add, and assign

On the Yahoo user group for NextGen, there are two long threads were users are discussing their experiences with this solution.  Here is what I have put together from those notes.

It's great for viewing patient charts, so for Case Managers and Auditors, this is a great feature.

We do not really use the Ipad for data entry much at all, as it is too cumbersome currently. It's not a native iPad app.

The biggest limitations are screen size and the ability to easily template - typically your finger or even the stylus we use is too large for radio buttons.

The two biggest benefits of NextGen on the iPad is the weight of the device and the 10 hour battery.  Another nice piece is the fact that you can download the Dragon app for free.  Open the app, speak into it, then copy and paste the text into NextGen.  When doing this it's best to utilize the iPad's multi-tasking by double tapping the home button to bring up recently used apps.

NextGen does not have a native iPad app, and from what we have heard from their engineers do not have a clear plan to develop one.

The mobile app is web based and extremely limited.  It doesn't allow any charting within templates.  It's simply for tasks, meds, allergies, etc.

The basic plus and minus is, if the user is going to be entering more than a tiny bit of data, it is not a good fit. If they need access to patient information from a mobile environment, but are doing few updates, it can be very useful since it is light and has great battery life.

NextGen mobile is the separate application designed to use on smart phones and iPads. It has limited functionality designed for the typical things you would do on the run, refill meds electronically, document phone calls, document a quick phone treatment, check your schedule, etc. It is optimized for display on small devices, uses that conventional type navigation that you see on iPhones. It is an additional cost.

It has been mention that user can use remote connection to their NextGen servers.  Here are a few that were mentioned.

iTap RDP (Remote Desktop for Windows) by HLW - $11.99.

Citrix Receiver for iPad by By Citrix Systems, Inc. - FREE.

VMware View for iPad by By VMware, Inc. - FREE

Is the mobile website enough for users? If there was a native app, what would you demand of it?  What features and functionality would you expect to see?  What would you like to see (icing on the cake)?

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1 Comment

  • Comment Link Kyle Goleno PA-C Wednesday, 14 September 2011 10:10 posted by Kyle Goleno PA-C

    Since one of those quotations is from a post I wrote, I'll chime in.

    We are a full service dermatology office.

    We have 25 ipads in our five locations. Our medical assistants, physician assistants, and physicians are using them to view the chart, select radio buttons/checkboxes, input data into structured fields, and create quick body maps for recall later.

    We use the Pocket Cloud app, and it works very well. Connecting in this fashion allows full access to the NextGen environment compared to NextGen's mobile solution.
    Screen shot of the app on the ipad can bee seen at http://kylegoleno.com/2011/05/pen-stylus-for-the-nextgen-ipad-app/

    If you are not currently using Citrix, then the Citrix server licensing will be an expensive option, even though the iPad app is free.

    Using a remote desktop app on the iPad offers some challenges, and a native iPad app would be designed for touch input, plus it could take advantage of native and add on hardware, like the iPad camera, it just doesn't exist.

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