The principal benefits of standardizing on ck_CompCare are:

• Comprehensive and flexible billing system that will meet current needs, will work efficiently, and can be adapted to a wide range of negotiated agreements.
• Multi-Clinic architecture. Designed to be able to exchange data between data sets localized at specific clinics.
• Fully integrated scheduler with single quick access to company, and personal information, and routing slips which list exam schedule along with detailed instructions tailored to client requirements.
• Protocols can be tailored to clients, insurance carriers, and specific visit reasons to help insure that all details agreed upon with clients will be carried out.
• A system optimized to your current needs and designed with your projected growth in mind.
• A development staff ready and willing to work with you. You are a very important client to us. Having our software work successfully for you is as important to our future as it is to yours. Our goal is to ensure that the program serves its primary role: a tool that improves staff efficiency, enforces standards, monitors and helps improve quality, and facilitates analysis so that you can make good decisions to improve productivity and profitability.

Through grants we have received from the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) we are creating a working demonstration of our Protocol Engine to run in an internet or intranet environment. As one facet of this demonstration we will be modifying ck_CompCare to send messages to the Protocol Engine whenever data is saved. The Protocol Engine will give a local ck_CompCare application immediate connectivity with systems throughout an organization without the presence of a high speed wide area network.

The Protocol Engine is a tool that will improve on the protocol functionality that is already built into ck_CompCare to provide health care staff members access to the latest management rules and guidelines at the time of treatment. It will run in the background, and will generally not interfere with a user's normal tasks. However, when an application, such as ck_CompCare, sends out notification that an event has taken place, it sends a small packet of information through an internet connection to a server describing the event that has taken place.
The server compares the event with it rules and guidelines list and either responds that no action is needed, or initiates a set of actions that could involve:

1. sending e-mail, faxes or some other form of notification to specific individuals;
2. flashing messages or warnings on the screen;
3. printing forms;
4. gathering data that has just been entered, and transferring it to a centralized system, for reporting monitoring or analysis; or
5. connecting the user's system to specific internet sites for access to the latest technical information.

Running in an internet environment gives the protocol engine a great deal of power. Mail can be sent automatically to anyone with an e-mail address. Information that needs to be displayed can be accessed from any home page. Data from separate clinics can be gathered and transferred, record by record as soon as it is saved, so that at any point management has access to the most current information. Data residing on other systems, such as lab results, can be accessed and queried or downloaded.
The potential for improving quality control, customer satisfaction, and management monitoring, awareness, and access to current data is enormous.

The schematic illustrates the way in which we feel that the Protocol Engine will be able to tie together separate clinics with a centralized management system, and also communicate directly with payors.

On any individual's computer the Protocol Engine will require no more than a normal web browser such as Netscape or the Internet Explorer which will run under the Windows operating system. The heart of the Protocol Engine will be the software that that we will develop to run on a Web-server. We will also modify ck_CompCare to send very small event messages to the server though a normal internet link so that within no more than a second or two, the message can be transferred and the server can determine if a triggering event has occurred and a prescribed set of actions now need to be followed. The Protocol Engine will run on the same system as ck_CompCare, but in a different window. Security of all data flowing in and out will be maintained. Our development target for setting up and implementing the Protocol Engine is in the third quarter of 1997.

Our goal for this grant will be to develop and demonstrate a tool which will be very useful to multi-clinic organizations, and very appealing to insurers and managed care organizations. We are very interested in finding organizations who wish to be partners in this development. We feel it is an excellent and exciting opportunity for everyone involved to achieve a significant competitive edge in quality of care, efficiency, and cost reduction. Contact us for more information.