PROOF Open House - Physician Resource Office of the Future

The PROOF lab opened its doors yesterday in Richmond, BC. Approximately 40 guests attended a small opening to meet, discuss technology and Electronic Medical Records/Electronic Health Records and how these tools can be used to integrate health delivery across the continuum of care (Acute, Community and Primary care settings). I will be featuring articles on PROOF in future postings on CanadianEMR.

PROOF is a training, testing and quality assurance lab and is a showcase for secure high speed network access is a real physician practice setting. PROOF provides in-house technology and the capability to evaluate and use Electronic Medical Records; decision support tools identity management technologies such as proximity cards and biometric authentication and provides remote access to regional clinical management systems. PROOF is a secure external site from which to access and evaluate remote access to regional clinical management systems.

Founding principles:

• To operate with openness and transparency;
• To provide a physical setting in order to evaluate, test and learn about technologies that could be useful to physicians and their staff in a clinical practice environment;
• To facilitate collaboration amongst vendors, funders, users and implementation specialists who are involved in the design and implementation of technologies that support eHealth;
• To encourage innovation and adoption of technology in medical practice settings;
• To establish an annual ‘PROOF Awards’ in order to recognize and showcase innovation by physician practices;
• To operate according to a ‘Not for Profit’ principle by re-investing funding and revenues generated (after operating expenses) back into the ongoing development and operations of the facility. Once PROOF becomes operationally viable, to apply for official Not-for-Profit status as an independent entity.

PROOF has a number of intended purposes:

• Conformance testing and evaluation of EMR systems by funding or evaluation organizations,
• Research into usability and functionality of EMR software and hardware in a physician office;
• Use by physicians who wish to test / evaluate a specific EMR system in a setting outside of their medical practice and bring in real patients to assess in the examination rooms or physician office;
• User training of both physicians and medical office staff;
• Evaluation of remote monitoring devices by medical device manufacturers who wish to test in a realistic physician office setting with approved EMR applications.

PROOF Awards

• The annual PROOF awards are being established to recognize innovation, adoption and use of technology by physicians and their staff in medical practice settings. Five prizes of $1,000 will be awarded once yearly. Physicians will be invited to submit their stories through a featured section entitled ‘Show me the PROOF’, physicians will be invited to tell their stories. These submissions may include images, text or video;
• A panel of national experts will be established to adjudicate the submissions;
• The winners will be featured in an issue of Technology for Doctors Magazine;
• In addition to their prize, winners will receive a framed awards certificate and bragging rights for the next year.

To add your thoughts or comments, click on the 'Comments' link below.