ClearPractice Focuses on Mac, iPhone, iPad with Practice-Management Suite

Health care software developer ClearPractice has introduced a new software as a service (SaaS) health care practice-management suite, called Eden, for the Mac, iPhone and iPad.

Eden is said to be the first full-featured medical-practice platform in the cloud, according to ClearPractice, a Web-based provider of practice management, electronic prescribing and personal health record (PHR ) applications.

Announced on July 12, the product aims to help doctors’ offices manage their clinical and financial tasks from anywhere on Mac or Apple mobile devices. Although the product works on Firefox in Windows, users get more complete functionality in Safari on the Mac or Internet Explorer on the PC, according to Joel Andersen, president of ClearPractice.

As the iPad gains a foothold in the health care industry, many physicians prefer the functionality of Apple’s interface, Andersen told eWEEK. Eden runs four times faster on the Mac in Safari than in Internet Explorer on the PC, he said.

“The consumer appeal of Apple products and the infiltration of those products into doctors’ everyday lives have really extended into the practice,” Andersen said. “There hasn’t been a lot of compelling offerings on a Mac platform. All of the vendors have ignored this segment, and we think it’s a really growing trend.”

Of physicians who lack a mobile device, 66 percent are likely to select Apple products, the company reports. Furthermore, 90 percent of doctors that ClearPractice surveyed plan to use the iPad in their practice.

Eden is a unified platform that incorporates ClearPractice’s existing Nimble iPad and Fetch iPhone applications.

In September, ClearPractice launched Nimble, its electronic health record (EHR) platform for the iPad. The company recently launched Fetch, a scaled-back version of Nimble to accommodate the iPhone’s smaller screen. Like Nimble, Fetch allows doctors to check schedules, write prescriptions and access patients’ electronic charts.

“If you subscribe to Eden as a doctor, it gives you carte blanche access,” Andersen explained. “If you want to use Mac, iPhone, iPad, you can use any of them.”

The components of Eden include practice-management functionality, EHR viewing, a patient PHR portal and an integration engine. Practice-management tasks include scheduling patient appointments, coding for visits and collecting payments.

“Information flows seamlessly between the clinical aspects of the system and the financial aspects of the system,” Andersen said.

The integration engine allows practices to communicate with outside parties, including labs, insurance companies and pharmacies.

Meanwhile, using the PHR portal, patients can request prescription refills, schedule appointments and view their health records.

“I use Apple products at home-I have a Mac, iPad and iPhone-and I wanted that to translate into our practice environment,” Dr. Scott Yates, managing physician at the Center for Executive Medicine, in Plano, Texas, said in a statement. “But we also needed something that would be comprehensive, flexible and easy to use.”

Eden’s dashboard on the Mac includes tabs for Demographics, Insurance, Outstandings, Appointments and Reminders. Other menu items in the interface include Diagnostics, Billing, EMR and Messaging.

The iPad version in Nimble offers similar menu items, including an inbox for Messages, Review Results, Progress Notes, Admissions (inpatient list), Prescribe, Pharmacy Requests, Today’s Claims and Scheduler.