Karisma - Key Features

Management Reporting

Karisma’s inbuilt management reporting capabilities provide an essential management tool for your organisation - affording access to real-time information in a format that's easy to understand and analyse. Reports can be used to analyse trends and workflow within your organisation - creating an effective tool to monitor and increase productivity and revenue.

Patient Reporting

Most often the highest ongoing expense for a diagnostic imaging organisation, Radiologists must be afforded the resources to ensure workflow efficiency. Using ad hoc, bolted-on solutions such as word processor programs for reporting will result in workflow efficiency loss for several reasons. These include the following:

  • Using a tool external to the RIS will mean time lost waiting for opening and saving reports.
  • Medico-legal implications due to the inability to review previous saved versions of reports.
  • Incompatibility between versions may mean:
    • Obsolete patient demographics are quoted.
    • The RIS cannot perform intelligent queries as it is unaware of the content of the document.
    • External programs can only print to printers defined and maintained on the workstation where it is used.

Radiologist ‘look-away’ can also slow down the organisation’s most expensive resource. Karisma allows the creation of canned or template reports, offers good voice recognition and digital dictation and gives users the ability to drive the application by voice. All this means increased efficiency for the Radiologist who can now keep their eyes firmly affixed to the images and not move them back and forth from the PACS to the RIS.

The use of structured reports by Radiologists provides consistent reporting and full text indexing. In order to keep the data resident in the application, Karisma employs its very own word processor, with the same functionality as most third-party word processing packages. This invaluable tool allows users to enter a report directly into the Karisma database, without exporting the data to a third party application.

In order to keep the data stored in atomic (as small as possible) elements, the reporting functionality must also be constructed with structured reports in mind. Structured reports, like those in Karisma, give the user the impression that they are typing into one large word processing field, where really they are entering information into specific fields in the database. This means that when there is a requirement to find, for example, all instances of the word ‘fracture’ in the diagnosis field, the search can go to the exact location of the word and provide accurate results.

The managed schema and code essentially provides a blueprint for Karisma. The tool to create this blueprint, the Blueprinter, allows programmers to include any column in any table in a full text index, which provides the ability to search for words within a body of a report.

Accounting

Karisma’s integrated accounting module delivers a simple and efficient work flow for the day-to-day running of your practice; from quoting prices to issuing invoices and receiving payments. Statistical reporting delivers you accurate and relevant information about the performance of your practice to allow you to make the right business decisions.

The success of a practice hinges on the effectiveness of its accounting module. Failing to identify problem trends in your practice can cause significant financial problems. Inefficient workflows such as poor invoicing and debt recovery are often the source of these trends.

  • Karisma has fluent account management that ensures invoices are issued and all debts followed up in a timely manner.
  • Karisma delivers statistical reports to your desktop so you can identify the latest trends in your practice.
  • Tight integration with the rest of the product delivers a seamless experience for your staff.
  • You declare the clinical services you offer to your patients and we handle the mapping to item numbers. Kestral shoulders the burden of understanding the rules for every item number in every schedule that is released. This all means you can concentrate on delivering the very best service to your patients.

Medicare Online Integration

Medicare Online provides direct electronic access to Medicare Australia’s billing and patient demographic services. Karisma offers a range of integrated services, from verification of patient Medicare card numbers, to online lodgement of private, bulk-bill and Department of Veterans Affairs claims.

The financial position of a practice depends on how quickly it can receive payment for the services it provides. Using Medicare Online significantly reduces the turnaround time for payment, as well as reducing the likelihood of errors during claiming by enforcing stricter checking before allowing lodgement.

  • Real-time verification of a patient’s Medicare eligibility allows you to avoid lodging bulk-bill claims for ineligible claimants.
  • Karisma can lodge Medicare claims on behalf of privately billed patients - saving them a trip to a Medicare office. The rebate can even be paid directly into the patient’s bank account.
  • Submitting bulk-bill claims through Medicare Online results in much faster payment from Medicare Australia, while better checking before submission means fewer roadblocks to receiving your payment.
  • Concerns about the reliability of technology are no longer an issue, as Karisma supports storing of claims for later transmission.

Importing Patient Data

The latest version of Karisma includes a module for uploading data from previous solutions; even after Karisma has gone live. The module allows you to generate an XSD file (XML Schema Definition) which defines the exact format required for any XML upload files. Each patient that is to be uploaded can then be defined in a single XML file, including demographics, requests and results, bookings and accounting information. These patient XML files can be placed in an SQL table and Karisma will automatically upload them. This module can be utilised at any time so sites can go live and backload their XML patient files afterwards.

Import facilities for patient accounts and reports are an important part of any production solution. It can be logistically impossible to have all your old data migrated into a new program before going live. For example, large multi-site clients would have difficulty installing a new solution concurrently across all their sites. It is for this reason that Karisma provides the mechanism with which to import your patient data after it has gone live. The XML import format is used to import the patient data because it allows for a reasonable level of complexity - whereas CSV is not sophisticated enough to allow for the complexity of patient data.

Scheduling

Scheduling an examination within Karisma is fast and intuitive, ensuring patients do not experience unnecessary waiting periods and receive a smooth transition through your organisation.

Karisma supports single, double and multiple exam booking, with predetermined criteria ensuring accurate, conflict-free scheduling as well as support for all levels of scheduling from a single site to a centralised booking system for a multi site practice.

Physical resources such as scanning equipment and rooms can be assigned to patient procedures providing for maximum utilisation of all types of resources. Rostering of medical personnel such as radiologists, medical imaging technologists and nurses can also be managed to ensure necessary staffing levels.

The assistance of preparation notes whilst scheduling allows for the immediate discussion of specialised exam preparations or distribution to the patient via other methods such as print, facsimile or email.

SMS Reminders

Karisma's SMS reminder features allow users to configure SMS to be sent to patients as scheduling reminders. Getting a message to your patients’ mobiles is as easy as creating a template message and selecting the messages to be sent during reminder runs.

As the template message is created, you’ll get a dynamic preview of the message details you are composing, along with the character length to let you know whether the message is within the standard character limit of the SMS format. Messages of any length can be created, but those exceeding the SMS limit will be split over as many messages as required.

Reminding patients of their bookings means fewer cancellations and missed appointments. Preventing forgotten services will ensure you make the absolute most efficient use of your resources and equipment – filling every available slot for maximum business benefit.

Manage Service Requests

Karisma enables you to monitor and manage patient flow to improve patient service and increase productivity. Using the Patient Services page within Karisma, Medical Imaging Technologists (MITs) are able to access film bags, order and scheduling information pertaining to examinations from one central location.

The Patient Request Service Management dialog, accessible from the Related Information panel, is designed to be a ‘one stop shop’ for MITs - providing timely and convenient access to all information relating to examinations, requests and reports associated with the selected patient.

Voice Dictation

Karisma’s inbuilt dictation function streamlines the workflow of Transcriptionists and increases their efficiency by using voice clips incorporated as part of the patient report. Integrated dictation is vital for the accuracy and efficiency of Transcriptionists. Referring to a list of dictations in one system, and a list of reports in another, creates room for error.

Voice Recognition

Karisma supports full integration with voice recognition (VR) software giving you the power of instant voice transcription as well as full voice control in the ultimate hands-free experience.

With recent advances and current trends in VR technology, Karisma has capitalised on the opportunity to offer you the freedom of using PACS with either the mouse or keyboard. Instant voice transcription eliminates the transcription stage in patient reporting while improved workflow efficiency with VR means the turnaround time for reporting is greatly reduced.
  • Karisma allows you to drive your dictation, reporting and imaging requirements seamlessly and effectively using VR.
  • Hands free implementation gives you the freedom to use your PACS how you want.
  • Reporting is made easier and instant voice transcription means that your workflow is improved.