The following content is sponsored by Digitech
By EMS1 Staff
It’s easy to see why so many customers have embraced Ambulance Commander®, whose Dashboard, Financial Scorecard, and Analytical Scorecard modules let EMS agencies pull together data from a variety of sources and then combine data points into reports that provide a clear picture of an EMS system’s operational and financial performance.
Now Digitech®, long a recognized leader in the field of EMS billing solutions, has developed PCR Lens™, a new, modular add-on to its already powerful and widely used Ambulance Commander software suite. PCR Lens brings all of the patient data collected in the field into an intuitive, easy-to-use visual interface.
Its customizable reporting features will enable you to harness every piece of data you collect and view it from a variety of perspectives that help you to understand how well your medics are collecting the data you need for effective billing. Not only can you assess whether you are collecting the data you need, but you can measure the quality of that data, compare crews, monitor individual performance, and even stack your service up against other agencies.
But it’s how Digitech’s team of tech experts approached the creation of PCR Lens that sets it apart from other EMS billing software offerings. Employing the latest in development methodology and sophisticated data analysis capabilities, Digitech’s approach is centered around anticipating and responding to every potential need of its customers.
And if you don’t see a feature you want, check in with Digitech — they might be building it out right now.
Technical tactics
To understand why PCR Lens is so perfectly tailored to the needs of the modern EMS agency, it’s important to understand how it was developed. The key to rolling out new features Digitech’s customers really need is Agile development, a method of incremental software development based on adaptive micro-releases called sprints, rather than predictive major overhauls like point releases.
“With Agile development, we don’t really have a set schedule of releases,” Ben Lambert, VP of Technology at Digitech, explained. “Instead, we establish a small set of features that we would like to roll out to clients in the next update (a ‘sprint’) and then update as soon as they are completed and tested. The goal is to keep each sprint manageable and measurable, so we can perform a continual iterative update process for all our users.”
“Depending on the content of the sprint, it’s possible for us to even be able to roll out requested features the very next day,” Lambert said. “Once an update is deployed, we immediately incorporate user feedback from the new feature set with goals and tasks that we’ve already established, prioritize based on the utility for our users, create a new ‘sprint,’ and the cycle begins again.”
Hardware concerns for deploying PCR Lens are minimal — if your computer or tablet has an Internet connection, then you can run Ambulance Commander; if you can run Ambulance Commander, you can run the PCR Lens module. The software is built on Microsoft SQL Server, with sets programmed in C# in the .NET framework.
Max Dekle, lead developer for the project, added, “We use a set of licensed libraries to format the analysis into the charts, grids, and graphs that the end user actually manipulates and sees, which is the purpose of PCR Lens: taking away the difficulty of manually parsing and interpreting the raw data, and breaking it down in an easy to read, easy to customize format.”
Data validation
Because Digitech is also involved in editing and submitting claim information, PCR Lens can show users the end effect of their data collection efforts on the submission process. Dekle explained, “The Validity view allows the user to take the raw data collection rates provided by PCR Lens and compare them to the end result of our claim handling, which shows the direct effect of good data on the processing. This required a new integration between systems that hadn’t been done before, and it was extremely satisfying to be able to display validation results.”
By consulting these reports, you can target your training budget more effectively to those who most need remediation, while also highlighting and learning from your top performers to help inform that remediation and other training initiatives.
The company is developing new tools to make the data even more accessible. “Based on the feedback we’re receiving, we’re currently developing a new view of PCR Lens that breaks the data down into a simple scorecard for a time period, showing at a glance where problems are occurring and where things are going well,” said Mark Schiowitz, President and CEO of Digitech, and original developer of Ambulance Commander. “Within just a few clicks, the user can get a general feel for their collections — and then, of course, they can break it down even further by all of our other comparison techniques.”
How do you measure up?
One of the most unique and important features built into PCR Lens is its ability to perform powerful, revealing cross-company comparisons and evaluations.
“We’re looking into ways to increase the abilities of PCR Lens users at all participating agencies not only to collaborate with each other and share their data collection techniques, but also to break down comparisons even further (by volume, disposition, demographics, etc.). We anticipate that this will allow users to identify and establish which other agencies may become their most valuable collaborators,” Schiowitz noted.
What does that mean? PCR Lens users will be able to see and learn from what other agencies are doing well, and they you, which serves to enhance performance all around.
To find out more about how PCR Lens can help your agency to its full operational potential and efficiency, contact Digitech today:
866-300-3334 Digitech Sales
