Comments on: EMR Vendor Executives on Meaningful Use and Certification Requirements – Part Three of a Series

By: paul Roemer

paul Roemer — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 03:16:01 +0000

Great points, however I think a lot of the difficulty has to do with an unwillingness of firms budgeting the time and money to deal with the soft skills needed to do the training, process improvement, and change management. It’s always easier to install than to use.

By: Ashok Mathur

Ashok Mathur — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:31:19 +0000

Most of these established EMR vendors (quoted here) sell old, hard to use EMR. No wonder Physicians have a hard time adopting CPOE or EMR. Even large number of training and customization hours/$s (sold) do not result in higher EMR utilization.
Paradigm shift is required. Consumers (including physicians, nurses) order goods, over the web, all the time…but not so easy for CPOE in legacy EMR world. When would these vendors produce an easy to CPOE? We all know web is the lowest cost of producing and delivering software (look at Sales Force) but legacy vendors keeping pushing old client server technology at enormous cost to physicians.
Winning solutions will come from emerging new EMR using web technologies to provide an intuitive system at truly affordable price. Innovation is required to transform nation’s healthcare IT. Sadly, it is not going to come from the old established EMR vendors. In future, HISTALK should also poll new emerging innovative companies.

By: paul Roemer

paul Roemer — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:28:54 +0000

Isn’t this somewhat a chicken and egg question? For starters, those hospitals which have implemented CPOE are in the minority. Executives tell me that the implementation is more difficult than implementing EHR. Since most hospitals have not even selected a CPOE I think they won’t even have to concern themselves with meeting 80% for 2011 as they will not have completed their implementation in time to worry about how easy it is to get to the threshold.

By: Abhi

Abhi — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:13:18 +0000

Agree with Skelton.
Not so sure who the executives are talking about. Physicians I have met in urban and rural areas are not close to being ready. They want to buy an EMR, but they are unlikely to achieve 80% CPOE anytime soon.
In a typical paper practice, it takes about a year for the practice to flow smoothly with a new EMR. It takes them 6-8 months to figure out whicih EMR to buy. In the best case, private practices will be ready with CPOE June 2011. Which may be late for year 1.

By: Skeptic

Skeptic — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:39:16 +0000

Frankly I am surprised that a couple of these guys (namely Girish and Pead) seem to believe that the 80% CPOE adoption will be so easy. Either they have incredible confidence in their software and the ability of their staff to affect change management, or, they are incredibly out of touch with the culture of your average physician practice. Steele is correct is suggesting it will be a huge challenge and Skelton understands that the transition will be more difficult for private practices and specialists in general.