Monday, January 5th, 2009
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Press Releases...
For Immediate Release: 5/13/02 The United States Chamber of Commerce selection notification states: "This year's winner will be a large part of the community as he continues to "give back" by volunteering his time to needed causes." Recently, Specialty Eye Care/SEECA has provided the following services to our community. Free vision and or eye exams to the following:
Helped raise $61,000 for the March of Dimes (Fantasy Auction) Sponsor of the Run for Excellence, 5k road race "We hope to raise awareness of ocular health by educating the public on the importance of regular eye exams," says delaHoussaye. "Every team member has contributed to our success and we enjoy supporting our community." A. J. delaHoussaye, MD, (Dr. D) graduated from Redemptorist High School and (LSU) Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He received his medical degree from LSU Medical School where he graduated with Honors. He completed a 4-year residency in Internal Medicine/Ophthalmology at Ochsner Hospital in New Orleans, before starting a solo practice in Houma Louisiana. The practice has grown rapidly and presently employees 15 people.
The Courier (2004) Q: What is SEECA? A: SEECA is the fastest growing full service eye care practice in the region and WE WANT TO BE YOUR EYE CARE PROVIDER. Q: What do patients say about SEECA?
A: "I have never been to a doctor's office where every person is so helpful". A.E. Q: Can I get excellent eyecare AND save time at my next eye appointment? A: Dr. D and his staff have designed and copyrighted the first fully computerized eye practice in the region. The computer system never loses your chart, keeps the clinic on schedule, provides the most advanced eye care available and decreases the average patient wait times to less than 13 minutes. Q: Need Eye glasses or Contact lenses? A: SEECA is the only ophthalmologist practice in the region that HAND CRAFTS your glasses in its own manufacturing lab. This allows SEECA to provide an excellent pair of glasses at a super low price with a money back guarantee. We also carry all major brands of contacts at wholesale prices. Q: Why haven't I heard of SEECA before?
A: Most of our new patients come to us by word of mouth referrals from other satisfied patients. If
you are one of our 25,000 patients, we sincerely thank you for all the kind referrals of your friends
and family. If you have never been to SEECA, please consider giving us a try. We promise to do our very
best to give you the most advanced eye care possible at a fair price.
Business Needs (Microsoft 2003) SEECA, which treats patients in an ophthalmology office and an eye surgery center, used an electronic medical records (EMR) system to log every aspect of patient care. However, SEECA staff couldn't access the system while they were in the surgery center located just across the street from the SEECA office. Instead, staff members had to type information into spreadsheets and write notes by hand. When the workers returned to the office, a data-entry employee would manually enter this information into the EMR system. Not only did this process require an additional employee for data entry, but it also left the system open to human error and lost records. In addition, SEECA workers couldn't schedule appointments from the surgery center, because they couldn't access the SEECA office's practice management system, which includes information for scheduling and billing. The manual process of printing doctor referral letters and sending them with a fax machine also needed to be automated.
SEECA wanted to:
Solution: SEECA upgraded from Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server to Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 and from Microsoft SQL Server™ 7.0 to Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Microsoft partner Complete Network Management developed and deployed the solution. Major solution components include the following: Using Terminal Server and virtual private network technologies in Windows Server 2003, SEECA workers have remote, real-time access to the EMR and practice management systems. They can now enter data while working from the surgery center and the SEECA lab, which sells eyeglasses in a location separate from the office. SEECA staff can also schedule appointments and bill patients from remote locations. In addition, Complete Network Management can connect remotely to repair the system and monitor its performance by using Terminal Services Remote Desktop for Administration. With the fax service built into Windows Server 2003, SEECA workers now send faxes electronically as easily as they could print the same documents. Using Microsoft Windows SharePoint™ Services, a component of Windows Server 2003, SEECA created Web sites for document collaboration and meeting workspaces. SEECA secures the Web site traffic by using the encryption provided with the Certificate Services found in Windows Server 2003. Microsoft IntelliMirror® management technologies in Windows Server 2003 enable the easy setup and modification of roaming desktop profiles, providing a seamless environment that is easy to manage. Staff members can use their own settings as well as preprogrammed keyboard shortcuts when logging on to any of SEECA's computers, including workstations running Microsoft Windows XP Professional and a tablet PC running Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 provides e-mail for users who are in the office or working remotely. It also enables management of contacts including patients, doctors, and business partners. Microsoft SQL Server 2000 serves as the database for both the EMR and practice management systems. Benefits: By automating processes with a fast, reliable, and feature-rich system, SEECA has served more patients with fewer staff members, gained an additional U.S.$262,500 in revenue, and lowered both payroll and IT costs. Benefits include the following: The solution has enabled SEECA to achieve a 90 percent paperless environment, compared to the previous 70 percent paperless office. Because of efficiency improvements, SEECA was able to serve 8,500 patients in 2003, compared to 7,000 the year before. The increase of 1,500 patients - at an average of $175 per patient - amounts to an increase in revenue of $262,500. SEECA served more patients while reducing office staff from 20 employees to 7 - a 65 percent reduction in office payroll overhead. SEECA has reduced IT costs by 50 percent since the end of 2003. Patient satisfaction has increased, because the solution has reduced the average time that a patient is in the office from 1 hour and 40 minutes to about 50 minutes. This time includes checking in, seeing the doctor, and being released. The time that a patient waits for an exam room has been reduced from 30 minutes to 12 minutes.
LSU's Young Alumnus Award Dr. D earned a degree in medicine from LSU Medical School on a Board of Supervisors Scholarship. He performed research through a Southern Medical Association grant and was published in the "Life Science Journal". He was presented the LSU Medical Center Research Award in 1993. In 1994, he graduated from LSU Medical School as one of 5 Honor Graduates in a class of 184. He completed his residency in ophthalmology at Ochsner Hospital, where he was the first resident to perform clear cornea cataract surgery. At Ochsner, he invented and tested a laser-guided device that was found to enhance cataract surgery results. This device, called the LASER GUIDED TRUE SCAN, is presently used to improve cataract surgery results at SEECA. Dr. D also has a patent pending on a computer-based model that uses mathematical formulas to improve glaucoma management. Dr. D opened a solo ophthalmology practice in Houma in 1998. His company has grown rapidly and presently employs 20 team members. Dr. D and his team have created and implemented the first electronic medical record system in the region. The system dramatically increases the efficiency and accuracy of patient care. It also has the ability to extract complex data from patient records allowing research to be done in seconds. In the last few years, Dr. D and his staff have provided nearly 3500 free eye exams to numerous groups including local and State police, Houma Indians, Veterans, schoolchildren, and the elderly. In 2001, SEECA was named "Houma Small Business of the Year" by the United States Chamber of Commerce. In 2003, Dr. D was named "Outstanding Businessperson of the State" for the tri-parish region by the Small Business Association of America. Recently SEECA was nominated for "Innovator of the Year" as a result of its pioneering work in the area of computerized medical records.
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