title: Respiratory care billing using a personal digital assistant.
abstract: In 2003 I reported how my respiratory care department at Tufts-New England Medical Center developed an inexpensive, in-house, computerized clinical-information-management system, in which the respiratory therapists carry handheld computers during their rounds, entering clinical information into the handhelds as they work and later downloading that information to a database in a desktop computer. Now we have added a billing module to our customized software. This article describes the design, use, and attributes of this billing system, including improved charge-capture, which increased department revenue substantially. Our system has several other important advantages over traditional billing systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Respiratory Care, Tufts-New England Medical Center, Boston, MA 02111, USA. whoward@tufts-nemc.org
authors.forename: William R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Howard
mesh_terms: D034201:Computers, Handheld; D006801:Humans; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D010350:Patient Credit and Collection; D012140:Respiratory Tract Diseases / Q000628:therapy*