Online tool helps prioritize health IT purchases

Physicians unsure about where to start on the road toward meaningful use now have a tool to assist them.

Amagine Inc., the American Medical Association's health IT subsidiary, announced the launch of a feature on its website that will help physicians prioritize their health IT objectives. Amagine's health IT index was unveiled at the AMA's Annual Meeting held in Chicago in June.

The health IT index allows doctors to identify their health IT priorities by answering questions on a five-minute online survey. The survey asks about the importance of certain health IT functions, and respondents answer by using a sliding scale.

Once users reach the end, a chart shows which items were identified as a priority and which were less urgent. Clicking on each item will prompt the display of a list of products offered through Amagine to help achieve each IT objective.

Amagine offers more than 20 health IT systems, including Allscripts and DrFirst, both e-prescribing systems, and Microsoft Corp., which is granting access to its personal health record platform, HealthVault. Isabel, a decision-support tool, also is available. The Web-based electronic medical record system Care360 by MedPlus will be offered on the platform along with NextGen and CareTracker EMRs.

Voltage Security will provide secure e-mail communication. The technology platform on which the systems run was developed by Covisint, a subsidiary of Detroit-based Compuware Corp.

Amagine recently added DrFirst Rcopia-MU, a certified EMR system that is an upgraded version of the DrFirst e-prescribing system combined with a national patient registry. WellCentive EMR was added, as well as DocSite Registry, a point-of-care registry that provides physicians with a patient's medical history and health status at a glance.

In April, Amagine was made available to physicians nationwide after two years of testing in Michigan.