I think a key piece that’s often left out of discussions on EMR adoption is that an EMR – ANY EMR will fundamentally change the way your practice works. Many physicians approach an EMR implementation with the assumption that software can immediately imitate their workflows with no issue whatsoever. I think more physicians would be satisfied with their current EMRs if they had realistic expectations of what installing an EMR means for them as an organization, and the kinds of organization changes that an EMR will bring with it.

If you couple that with the sales people who no doubt ‘fudge’ the facts, promise things without checking with their developers to see if its possible resulting in things being promised to physicians that were never possible to begin with — and you’ve got a lot of dissatisfied people. On every install I worked on, I said time and time again that communication from the CIO all the way down to the part time scheduler is imperative to have a successful implementation.

Sorry to hear that Richard feels as he does. Using an EHR isn’t about the money, at least in my humble opinion it isn’t. It’s about being a part of doing the right thing. We’re still in the infancy of healthcare digitization, so of course it’s painful. Raising baby isn’t about cost savings or avoiding sleepless nights and parental angst. It’s about doing what’s right, doing what’s needed, to raise a child that will become a well-adjusted addition to the world. And, honestly, is there any way to say that the “adult” paper medical record has any real remaining value given our full-blown and ever-growing information explosion? None that I can see, at least not if you look past the very short term and exquisitely localized view.