Welcome to the new era of medicine. Physicians are bombarded constantly with advertisements, news sound bites, policy changes, and Federal incentives to adopt electronic health records. Under Obama administration many sweeping legislative changes are coming. A push for nationalized health care is undoubtedly in the offing. While there are many complex components involved in “solving” the current healthcare dilemma, there is without question one central theme that dominates healthcare: ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS or ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS.
Current economic conditions has set forth unprecedented stimulus packages aimed at solving the current credit crisis. Among the areas garnering strong support by the Obama administration is healthcare cost containment. To achieve that, many stimulus packages have been either implemented or are in process:
- tax incentives in 2009 to implement paperless electronic medical office.
- medicare incentives to provide electronic prescriptions beginning 2011.
But where does a busy physician who is consistently asked to do more with less turn to for legitimate unbiased information? There are no less than 20 major companies that deal in the EHR/EMR arena. How do you sift through voluminous advertisements and targeted claims of improving revenue, streamlining work flow, and decreasing practice overhead?
A good starting place would be to look at CCHIT (Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology). What is CCHIT? It is a non-profit certification body for EHR and related fields. Its purpose is to accelerate adoption of EHR by medical community. It offers valuable listing of EHR/EMR companies that have met or exceeded CCHIT standards. CCHIT sets the gold standards by which EHR/EMR products must achieve. In short it is the “certifying” board for EHR/EMR products. A list of CCHIT approved companies are listed at the website.
Many professional organizations for physicians including American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), American Medical Association (AMA), American Osteopathic Association (AOA), and many other organizations have extensive reviews and support forums for EHR and EMR systems. Additionally, many local and state physicians associations also have resources available for physicians starting their research.
Tap into the community resources available to you. Practices are beginning to adopt paperless concept by employing IT infrastructure, software deployment, and workflow implementation. Most physicians are eager to offer their insights and advice on how their system works. If possible, visit the office and observe the work flow produced by the particular EHR system. Some of the questions to ask are:
- How extensive was the IT implementation (including hardware requirements and cost)?
- Has it streamlined work flow and has the practice gained efficiency?
- What software is used? How was the implementation process?
- What type of maintenance is required?
- How is the technical support for the software?
- Is the physician happy with the results? Would he recommend this system?
- What was the cost involved in operation and implementation?
A good EHR vendor should have excellent support staff and they should be eager to help you. Additionally, a good EHR system will have a built in community of physician who have successfully implemented the system. Does the software company in question have a burgeoning community of users who offer valuable advice, forums, and insights? Additionally, can the software vendor in question have a network of reliable consultants who can implement IT infrastructure, offer technical support, and provide practice management solutions at reasonable cost?
Take an active role in educating yourself in the often confusing world of EHR/EMR systems. What may be right for one practice may not be right for another. However, it is generally accepted that a good EHR/EMR systems tends to increase its user base. Quite often the most expensive systems are not necessarily the best. Call representatives from companies that interest you and schedule a demonstration, visit their websites, and talk to vendors at trade shows.
Currently, the top systems, according to CCHIT are:
The above list are highly recommended systems within the professional community.
Whatever the case may be, the right time to start the educational process regarding EHR/EMR is now. Additionally, there are myriad of consultants available to help choose the right EHR/EMR system. If choosing this route, one must carefully evaluate the consultant group’s field of expertiese, their product offering, and effectiveness. But, this is another topic in itself but it is another avenue to help in finding the right system for the practice.
