A large, multi-state anesthesia group will use the iPad version of Shareable Ink's Anesthesia Cloud EHR module to help clinicians document patient encounters at all 25 of its practice locations, Nashville, Tenn.-based Shareable Ink announced Tuesday.

The group, Resolute Anesthesia and Pain Solutions, has been piloting the system at its flagship Boca Raton, Fla., location as physicians there work to achieve Stage 1 Meaningful Use, and will be introducing Anesthesia Cloud at all of its other sites in Florida, Missouri and Illinois this summer. "We've had a very wide acceptance by our clinicians," says Resolute's human resources director, Wendy Pizzo, largely because the technology does not force them to change their practice style.

Physicians and nurse anesthetists opted for the Shareable Ink iPad app, launched at HIMSS13, rather than the version of Anesthesia Cloud that uses Anoto digital pens to capture data from plain paper because it the Apple tablet allows those who serve patients at multiple hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers to take patient records with them. (Pizzo says none of the ASCs Resolute physicians practice at currently has an EHR.)

"It's exactly like the piece of paper they're used to," according to Pizzo, who had been administrator of predecessor company Broad Anesthesia Associates. Broad merged with the former Mid-Florida Anesthesia Associates, and the combined company changed its name to Resolute in May.

The app will connect through Shareable Ink's cloud to an ambulatory EHR, though users never need to see the interface. "All my anesthesia records are on the Shareable," Pizzo says.

The Boca Raton location has begun its 90-day attestation period for Stage 1 Meaningful Use, and others are starting to adopt the technology now. "Our goal is to have all of our providers online by September so they can have their 90-day attestation period this year," Pizzo says. Physicians and other eligible providers that reach Stage 1 before the end of 2013 are eligible for as much as $39,000 in Medicare bonus payments through 2016; the maximum drops to $24,000 next year.

Meantime, Shareable Ink is helping Resolute select an EHR, a decision that Shareable Ink founder and CTO Stephen Hau tells MobiHealthNews will be made in the next few weeks. "We will likely be inputting the data into an EHR which we will integrate on behalf of Resolute," Hau says.