Maine Doctor Rick Marsh says, "Computers rule!"
Learn How Computers Help His Practice Give Great Care.

Richard Marsh, MD Meet Richard Marsh, M.D. Board Certified Pediatrician (baby and children's doctor) and one of Maine's best practice doctors. Patients rate his care as excellent. He says his computer, not just his stethoscope and friendly manner, helps him deliver that great care. Learn why he and his patients have grown to love his computer. Learn more about Dr. Marsh at www.cmmc.org

If a medicine prescribed for your child was recalled (pulled off the shelf for safety reasons), would you want to know?

Of course you would. But how would you find out? Your doctor's office staff wouldn't have time to look through thousands of paper charts to find your child and a few others.

Only a doctor keeping medical records on a computer would be able to solve the problem. Luckily for his patients, Richard Marsh, M.D., a Lewiston pediatrician, was doing just that. So when he heard from the drug company about the recall, he found his patients using the medicine by pushing a button.

Dr. Marsh explains: "We found 150 patients on this drug. We contacted all of them by mail and made personal calls to 30 of them to follow up. That was really exciting that we could do that. We wouldn't even have been able to think about doing it with paper records.

You never know how things will work out when you start something new, like putting medical records on computer. As soon as two weeks went by, we said, we won't go back. We wouldn't go back to a paper form."

When your child visits the doctor, would you like to be sure that the doctor asks ALL the important questions and does ALL the important tests?

Of course you would. But how will the doctor remember? Medicine has grown too complex for any doctor to remember everything to ask and check for. And different questions and tests are right for different ages and conditions.

Dr. Marsh explains: The only way to practice consistently is to have a reminder right in front of you. We have computer stations in every exam room. I sit down with the patient (or their parents) and we can both see the screen. There are reminders about the questions and tests for each age group, based on national standards. And that's really important, because I don't have to keep it all in my head."

When your child is sick on a weekend and another doctor is "on call," would you like that other doctor to see your child's medical history at a glance?

Of course you would. You'd want a new doctor to know right away about your child's special needs and conditions. But will the doctor on call drive over to the office, pick up your child's paper medical record, and search through it? Probably not.

The same thing could happen with a visit to the emergency room. Will your child's records be available to the doctors there? Probably not.

Dr. Marsh explains: "With computer records, if I'm on call and at home, or if I'm in the hospital, I can log into the hospital computers and look up the chart. Or if a parent calls and tells me about a problem with a medicine, I can look it up with the push of a button. And I can do this for my patients and all my partners' patients. This is the best possible customer service and patient care."

When you or your child gets a prescription for medicine, would you like to be sure that no mistakes are made?

Of course you would. When doctors write out prescriptions on paper, all kinds of mistakes can happen. Sometimes handwriting isn't clear. It's easy to confuse medicines spelled almost alike, such as celebrex and celexa. It's also impossible for doctors to remember all the correct doses, side effects, possible allergic reactions.

Dr. Marsh explains: I don't write prescriptions any more. The computer does the work for me. All the medicines are set up to print out at the correct dose. And the computer does the printing. No one has to read my handwriting. I can even just fax the prescription to the pharmacy from the computer- so it can't get lost.

Even before I print a prescription, I use the computer to make sure the medicine will work with any other medicines the patient takes, that the patient won't be allergic, and to check for warnings about certain foods or alcohol. This is the safest way to prescribe medicine.

When your child (or you) have tests done, would you like to be 100% sure that your doctor gets the results and pays close attention to them?

Of course you would. But when tests are sent off to labs at other places, it's hard to keep track of all the paperwork. Results can be lost, even serious results that patients need to know about right away.

Dr. Marsh explains: "With everything done by computer, we have an automatic way of getting back to you on tests, no matter what. We monitor if you had an abnormal test. We have an automatic way of getting back to you if it's normal. And we don't lose records. We never have to say to a patient 'I guess we'll have to repeat the test because we can't find the results.'

If the test result isn't normal, we can follow up and make sure the patient comes back in for the care they need."

Would you like to know that your child's doctor (or yours) meets with their medical partners on a regular basis, going through ALL their records to make sure they are giving the best possible care?

Of course you would. But most medical practices can't do this. There's no way to sort through paper records to find out whether national standards are being followed all the time, whether patients are getting the most up to date care.

Dr. Marsh explains: "You may not realize that I don't necessarily talk to my partners very much. I don't necessarily know how they're practicing. This is very typical for medicine in general. But with all our records on computer, we can meet as a group and review together how we are treating our patients.

For example, we can ask the computer to pull up and group the data from all our patients with diabetes or asthma. We can make sure that we are all following national care guidelines, that we are doing the right tests at the right times, and using the best medicines for these conditions. This is quality control."

Would you worry about your family's privacy if your medical records were all on computer?

You might. But you don't need to.

Dr. Marsh explains: "Four years ago when we started using the computer, our patients were worried about their security and privacy. They also wanted to know who could look at their medical records.

I explain to them that we use the same high level security procedures as a bank, to make sure their records stay private. Our records are as hack-proof as possible. We have a policy that no one looks at a chart unless they have a right to look at it. And the computer keeps track of everyone who does look at a chart. We can tell who logs in to see the chart. We couldn't do that with paper records."

Dr. Marsh sums up his experience using computers in his medical office

"I thought I did good care in the paper world..I know I give better care using a computer. I can spend more time talking with my patients because I don't spend time shuffling papers. If I refer you to one of my specialists, they're looking at the same chart I have. And then the specialist can enter information in the same chart.

I'm trying to be patient-centric. I'm trying to see what patients need. It doesn't matter whether they're in the emergency room, or they're in the hospital, or they're in my office, or if they're with another physician. We ought to be able to get to the information needed, and we can do that with the computer records.

I've been around the country lately looking at a better hospital computerized record and anybody who's using a computer record would never go back to paper."