Comments on: Government EHR Program: Potentially Harmful Unintended Consequences

By: Anthony Johnson, M.D.

Anthony Johnson, M.D. — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:50:59 +0000

Evan Steele really summarizes with “The high failure rate will leave physicians “holding the bag” after investing large sums of money, failing to earn the anticipated incentives, and owning a system that doesn’t meet their needs.” And Jane Hughes makes great points about historical experience. It really does not matter who pays for the EHR if it is a bad product without interoperability and longevity. It is still a bad purchase! Another previous comment about paying the penalty (for not implementing EHR) as being less expensive than making the wrong decision is right on target.

I think we will all be on EHR systems in 20 years, but forcing the evolution without allowing free market refinements over a period of time is a recipe for a bad outcome and real financial difficulty at a time when reimbursements are surely going to have downward pressure. There is no margin for error with this huge financial decision. Anthony P. Johnson, MD Greenville, SC

By: Michael Silane MD

Michael Silane MD — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 19:19:24 +0000

For the physicians who are in their later years of practice, I believe there will be many who will not participate and, if it becomes mandatory, we will see many not only opting out of EMRs but out of practice.

By: Vishal

Vishal — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:53:53 +0000

I think today medical practitioners are looking to avail of this federal incentive by trying to comply with the definition of meaningful use but at the same time EHR providers are looking at their own set of profits.
This misunderstanding is mostly I believe as a result of wrong interpretation of the federal guidelines. The EHR providers need to look at these guidelines from the prospective of the practitioners who deal with different specialties.
Each specialty EHR has its own set of challenges or requirements which I believe is overlooked by in most EHR vendors in a effort to merely follows federal guidelines. This is resulting in low usability to the practitioners, thus less ROI, finally redundancy of the EHR solution in place.
I think ROI is very important factor that should be duly considered when look achieve a ‘meaning use’ out of a EHR solution. Though one may get vendors providing ‘meaning use’ at a lower cost, their ROI / savings through the use of their EHR might be pretty low when compared to costlier initial investment.

Also the introduction of REC’s through the HITECH act is a great way to avail of quality EHR solutions at competitive prices. The stiff competition among not only these REC’s but also among EHR vendors (to become a preferred vendor of a given REC) will result in lot of positives to medical practioners.

Looking at the funding provided to the REC’s, the staggered grant allocation system also promises to be an unbiased way of allocating funds. It will also help in the concept of REC’s helping out each with their own unique business models. It can be one of the possible answers to the
’safe vendor challenge’ as discussed by many critics.

By: paul roemer

paul roemer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:54:24 +0000

When applications vendors buy another vendor, rarely do they do it because they like the product–they like that vendor’s customer base. They let the acquired product die, collect maintenance fees, and when the customer has had enough of it, the acquiring vendor flips the customers to their legacy product.

By: David Lu

David Lu — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:28:51 +0000

I also foresee many companies in the EHR industry biting the dust on the trail of the federal EHR stimulus program. There will be plenty of consolidation within the industry and many doctors will “be holding the bag” to many different EHRs that will not be technically supported. For example, my MediNote EMR works great for my ophthalmology practice but Eclipsys bought it for $70 million dollars in 2009 and now has decided not to support it or make it CCHIT compliant. The EHR companies rushing to cash in on this stimulus program will be the big winners here.