Now with MData, when the physician gets the page, the data is right there at his/her fingertips. The physician makes a call and gives the order. This process only takes 2 minutes.

Look at the numbers: if a physician gets two pages a night, five pages a day, quality of life goes down simply because you don't have access to the information you need to do your job. As a physician, you want to take care of the patient, and you want to avoid making bad decisions--you want to avoid malpractice.

MData gives time back to the physician, thereby improving quality of life, allowing them to serve more patients, delivering more responsive care, and making more money. First and foremost, save time and make lives easier. Distilling it down, mobile access to clinical data earns higher physician satisfaction--which for hospitals is good for business.

Having mobile access to clinical data enables mobile charge capture. It's a necessary prerequisite.

Gantry: What value do you believe MData brings to hospitals?

Ying: MData drives physician satisfaction, the heart of the hospital's business. If the physician is satisfied, the physician refers patients to the hospital. It's as simple as that.

Physician satisfaction isn't motivated by the latest clinical decision support data, it's mobile clinical data that's easy to use that gets them excited. It's a tangible driver--strategically, operationally, tactically: it's happy docs that make the hospital's business successful.

Gantry: How are providers measuring the bottom line success, i.e. the ROI (return on investment) of mobile charge capture solutions?

Ying: There are plenty of practical group studies on charge capture. These studies show cash flow increases, total encounter increases, etc. The return is easy to measure. While these ROI assessments are very compelling, they've been around for 10 years. However, charge capture has only recently taken off in the market. Mobile charge capture is definitely linked to mobile clinical data.

Most ROI questions about mobile clinical data and mobile charge capture have gone away. It's accepted that physicians' satisfaction is good for the hospital's business. Believe it or not, in the past there actually used to be a position at hospitals titled VP of electricity. This individual was responsible for evaluating the merits of the application of electricity to healthcare practices and procedures.

The title, of course, no longer exists. Buy why? Electricity is now deemed as a necessary utility. No one asks for ROI of electricity, running water, or phone service. All are simply considered mandatory utilities. Mobile access to clinical data is now being considered such a necessary utility. It's the cost of doing business in health care, based upon subjective metrics.

Gantry: Based upon your customers' deployment experiences, what's the typical payback horizon for MData?

Ying: Customers are measuring payback. MercuryMD is the #1 numerically-rated vendor based on customer satisfaction feedback as determined by the largest vendor organization, KLAS Enterprise.