Situation: With the United States’ goal of having all medical records in an electronic format within five to seven years, doctors are finding themselves moving at a rapid pace with the installation and upgrades of current technology for their practices. President George W. Bush has made Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and overall healthcare technology a major focus of his administration.

The current administration has pledged $100 million to “…spend on projects that use promising health information technology. This would encourage the replacement of handwritten charts and scattered medical files with a unified system of computerized records. By taking this action, we would improve care, and help prevent dangerous medical errors, saving both lives and money,” President George W. Bush, January 24, 2004.

How do we get there? Not only do a patient’s health history and records need to be electronic, but to further increase patient safety, prescriptions will also need to become automated and printable while remaining secure. EMR software companies like Medinotes and technology companies like Star Micronics America are answering the call by combining MediNotes Electronic Medical Record software technology and Star’s TSP800 thermal prescription printer to save doctors time and money while decreasing errors due to legibility, in their medical facilities. By merging the TSP800’s reliability with MediNotes EMR technology, medical professionals can now employ automated prescription printing with a user-friendly EMR interface to improve the efficiency of their practices. ­

“The TSP800/MediNotes combination cut downtime in my office, and also lowered my overhead. With just a few clicks of the mouse, I can pull up a patient’s record, and print out secure prescriptions. It eradicates time-consuming callbacks from pharmacists double-checking prescriptions. The TSP800 was also extremely easy to set up.  The technical support from Star Micronics was fantastic, and walked me through directions that had the printer up and functional within minutes.” – Dr. John Kazilionis, certified family practitioner, South Portland, ME.

Because the TSP800 is the only printer on the market that combines the ability to print on rolls of script size paper with such high print speed (6 inch/sec.), it prints secure and legible prescriptions in a matter of seconds (approx. 2 sec.). The TSP800 uses thermal technology for faster, cleaner printing on specialized and secure prescription paper that can be ordered according to state prescription specifications. Today thermal paper manufacturers offer paper products that can be archived up to 25 years.

“The TSP800/MediNotes combination cut downtime in my office, and also lowered my overhead,” said Dr. John Kazilionis, a certified family practitioner in South Portland, ME. “With just a few clicks of the mouse, I can pull up a patient’s record, view their history and print out secure prescriptions. It eradicates time-consuming callbacks from pharmacists double-checking prescriptions. The TSP800 was also extremely easy to set up,” said Dr. Kazilionis. “The technical support from Star Micronics was fantastic, and walked me through directions that had the printer up and functional within minutes.”

The TSP800 features “Drop-In & Print” paper loading, and uses the Raster Graphic Driver for Windows™. It has barcode capabilities, and numerous interfaces for easy integration, including, serial, parallel, USB, Ethernet and Wi-Fi. It is space efficient, with both wall and vertical mounts available. The TSP800 employs jam-proof features including: a jam-proof cutter with full or partial cut-, a capability that can be used to avoid scripts falling to the floor- and a jam-proof paper path.

Star Micronics, one of the world's largest printer manufacturers, amassed with 50 years of manufacturing and technology expertise, has developed the ultimate thermal prescription printer which integrates with MediNotes Corporation Software. Star’s TSP800 thermal printer enables doctors to print secure prescriptions versus handwritten prescriptions from a pad, avoiding legibility errors. Utilizing specialized and secured prescription paper, prescriptions are printed using the latest in EMR software technology from MediNotes, resulting in a secured legible script in seconds. Visit www.starmicronics.com.

MediNotes Corporation is a leader in electronic health records for small to medium primary care specialty practices with over 2,850 install sites nationwide. Visit www.medinotes.com.