January 6th, 2010
Dear Physicians:
We get it. We know why 98% of you have yet to embrace inpatient electronic documentation. It’s about your time. You are getting paid less for it, and you have more patients to see every day. You like paper because it’s fast and easy. And, you don’t like paper because you do a lot of redundant documentation. Also, you don’t like wasting time rewriting notes that were lost in the black hole that exists somewhere between the floor and the HIM department. You don’t have the time to learn a complex new system when it finally arrives, especially one that was thrust on you without forewarning or any input from you. You don’t have time to change your workflow to match a structured template that did not consider your specialty when it was designed.
There are myriad solutions that were built from legacy systems that are now being sold as Enterprise Medical Record systems, where physician documentation is merely a check mark in the agreement, and you were not given any say in the purchase. For those of you that have been forced to use these systems, you don’t have the time (or the money) to wait for these legacy system vendors to update the electronic forms every time your workflow changes, CMS requirements change, or billing requirements change.
December 30th, 2009
In a recent article discussing “Small hospitals shopping for big hospital IT” it would appear there is a new trend developing as hospitals struggle to get their EMRs in order. Considering all the stimulus buzz these days, there are very few hospitals in the US who aren’t looking to deploy a certified EMR by 2011. The knee jerk reaction to this “gotta have a meaningfully used EMR” seems to be “the one we have now isn’t doing the job so we’d better scrape together some money and invest in one of the really big guys.” If only there were truth to the notion that a more expensive system will deliver better features and be more adoptable by their clinicians. What isn’t told in the sales presentations is the host of problems you’ll be trading into when you leave Epicernsiem in favor of McQuadsystech.
