ARLINGTON, MA – Pranav Kothari and Rushika Fernandopulle, two physicians who worked on healthcare policy research at Harvard University, believe there is a better way to provide healthcare and they are setting out to prove it with a model medical practice they have established here in a suburb of Boston.

Called Renaissance Health, the practice is affiliated withMassachusetts General Hospital, and is based on research conducted through the Harvard Interfaculty Program for Health Systems Improvement.

"The process of care hasn't really changed in years," said Kothari.

While there have been efforts to improve primary care by "tweaking around the edges," he said, he and his partner wondered "what if you were going to do wholesale changes?"

So, two years ago they decided to set up the model practice — one in which the patients could call them anytime, anywhere. The patients have the doctors' cell phone numbers.

They encourage their patients to offer suggestions — big and small — to improve the practice, and they employ technology to help make their model work better. Though they launched the model two years ago, they are still very much in the development stage, Kothari said.

The practice uses an electronic medical record and practice management system developed by Greenway Medical Technologies in Carollton, Ga.

Renaissance Health has made Greenway its exclusive technology partner because more than any other technology company, Greenway was willing to work with Renaissance to develop new technology — or adjust existing software — to accommodate the "Innovative Primary Care Model" that Renaissance is creating.

"Renaissance Health selected Greenway as our technology partner because Greenway shares the same vision for the future of healthcare that we do," said Kothari.

"Greenway's leadership team understood from the beginning the importance of the backbone of the patient care process, and Greenway is innovative enough to design new features with us in order to stay in the forefront of our industry and to continually improve our processes."

Renaissance and Greenway are at work today on building a patient portal — one that will allow patients to access their medical records and will also help patients manage their health and care as they would a financial portfolio, Kothari said.

Besides online appointment scheduling and patient pre-appointment registration, e-prescription services, and correspondence with physicians, the practice will offer proactive reminders and advice for preventive care and offer clinical analysis as compared to industry standards.

Greenway's PrimeSuite is distinctive because it is built as an integrated clinical, financial, and administrative software solution for medical practices, Kothari said.

There were other vendors — Kothari and his partners investigated about 30 — who could offer the functionality that Renaissance expects in its technology, but they would have had to do so by cobbling four or five applications together, said Tee Green, Greenway's president and chief operating officer.

Greenway's PrimeSuite is a Microsoft .NET based software suite that includes integrated practice management, EMR, and managed care solutions.

"Renaissance Health is one of the most exciting industry projects we've ever been involved with," said Tommy Green, Greenway's founder and chief executive officer. "Our company realized from its inception the need to build a solution for the future. We plan to work closely with Renaissance Health to build the prototypical ‘office of the future' that we hope will serve as a model for medical practices across the country."