Each year, the Certification Commission surveys the healthcare community to assess the Commission’s performance. There is no better time to provide your feedback on CCHIT process, materials, and communications.
The annual CCHIT assessment survey is now open. It will be available until August 25.
Please take a few moments to provide your feedback on our performance by taking the survey.
As always, commenting on this blog is also a great way to communicate directly with CCHIT.
Recently, on HIStalk, Mike Gleason took the time to outline and explain 10 specific reasons that small practices have a hard time implementing EHR or EMR products.
His take?
Being an EHR implementer for the past 7 years has given me (I think) a unique perspective on why Dr’s make decisions and defer decisions. It differs for most Physicians’ but I think I can provide a few reasons. I’m sure it applies to all of us as well.
- Fear
- Ego
- Money
- War Stories
- No one wants to go first
- Product not perfected yet
- Waiting on Govt mandates
- Waiting on hospital install or Stark gift
- I have people for that
- Change
Interested in seeing how each of these reasons plays a part in EHR adoption? See “Mike Gleason on Reasons Small Practices are not implementing EHRs a fast as we would like.”
While “Is your product CCHIT Certified®?” should be the first question you ask, it is important to remember that there are still a number of questions that will help you select the best EHR for your organization.
Here are ten additional areas to question as you work through your EHR purchasing decision:
Tom Doerr, MD, Founder and Chief Medical Officer at Purkinje—makers of the CCHIT Certified® 2007 Ambulatory EHR CareSeries EHR 2.0—has published an extensive piece on the role of EHR in evidence-based medicine.
He writes:
When integrated into an electronic health record (EHR) system, evidence driven decision support is presented to the physician at the point of thought, providing crucial evidence-based literature that promotes timely and informed medical decision making. Further integration with a single platform solution that includes an electronic prescribing module provides the physician with objective, medication therapy decision support at the point of prescribing.
For more, see “The Benefits of Evidence-based Medicine in EHR Systems.”
John Halamka, MD, MS, offers some sage advice to help your EHR implementation go as smoothly as possible: clearly outline roles and responsibilities.
To wit:
When implementing large, complex projects, adding extra details like a roles and responsibility matrix prevent future problems. Assumptions can get teams into trouble. Well documented understandings keep everyone friendly. I hope you find it useful.
Need a starting point? Dr. Halamka shares his roles and responsibilities matrix.
As I thought about this series of Electronic Health Records and Electronic Medical Records contracts mini articles, I kept coming back to one of the top questions posed by frustrated providers and administrators attending my seminars and workshops… “How can we guarantee we’ll get timely vendor support when we need it?”
For some reason, Murphy’s Law (“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”), seems to always kick in after the system is installed, the final payment is tendered, and the practice is now dependent on the new technology. After all, you’re paying a substantial percentage of your license fee every year for your support and maintenance “rights.”
But still, in most cases, the onus is on you to protect your own interests. I have infrequently run across a vendor that voluntarily offers to penalize themselves for poor support or that guarantees and commits to exactly how you will be taken care of. You need to become the “squeaky wheel” when you need support and a “squeaky wheel” gets better traction if you have contractual “teeth” backing you up. Thus, the concept of support clauses in your contracts or separate Service Level Agreements (SLA’s)…
Dr. Lawrence Gordon of Waiting Room Solutions highlights some of the benefits and risks of making the move to Web-based EHR:
Are you thinking of taking the plunge and instituting an Electronic Health Record in your practice? Before you do, consider web-based software as an alternative to the traditional on premises software. Many other industries have accepted Software as a Service (SaaS) as a viable alternative to on premises software with leading software applications like Salesforce.com and Oracle Small Business.
Long story short: For small practices with limited IT resources, Web-based EHR may be a viable option that enables you to adopt a CCHIT Certified product for your practice.
To find out more, read “Are you thinking of using a Web-based EHR?“
Minnesota has made a number of recent moves that clearly place it at the forefront in terms of EHR and healthcare IT adoption, NHIN Watch offers:
Minnesota is a state to watch, as its governor, Tim Pawlenty, and legislators have worked with stakeholders in the healthcare industry on several pieces of legislation, including the Minnesota e-Health Initiative, which was created to accelerate the use of health IT healthcare quality and patient safety and reduce healthcare costs….
In 2008, legislators approved two more pieces of e-health legislation. One requires EHR purchases to be certified by CCHIT (Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology) and the other requires all providers to adopt e-prescribing by 2011, which was recently signed into law by Pawlenty.
If successful, it is highly likely that Minnesota’s laws will set a precedent and an example for other states to follow. So, it’s worthwhile for everyone involved in healthcare to stay up-to-date on Minnesota’s progress.
For more, read the NHIN Watch article on Minnesota and its innovative healthcare legislation.
[Editor: We are pleased to introduce guest author Michael Uretz, an expert on contractual negotiations surrounding the purchase of an EHR. Over the coming weeks, Uretz will contribute a series of posts that will help you better understand how to work through the contractual elements of your EHR purchase. Here’s a teaser for what’s to come.]
As I travel the country speaking and consulting on Electronic Health Records Best Practices I am fortunate to have conference attendees and consulting clients openly share their concerns, worries, apprehensions and their personal stories. And too often these concerns focus on EHR contracts, a concern exemplified by the following appeal from a frustrated provider:
My question is whether anyone out there has suggestions on negotiating the fine points on a contract. Our biggest concern is that the contract only deals with our obligations…nothing about their guarantee about service and functionality.
I’ve been involved with technology deals for many years, and when I began looking at EHR contracts a few years back, I noticed that, on face value, that they were fairly one sided. This makes sense from the vendor’s perspective. The vendor needs to look out for their own interests and those of their shareholders. The problem is, more often than not, practices and groups don’t spend the time to adequately review and negotiate their EHR contracts and support agreements to protect their own interests.
This is the worst mistake you could make as you will live for years with the “rules of the road” set forth in your EHR contracts and agreements. And once the deal is signed, there’s no going back. You have one shot at making it right, and that is before you ink the deal.
Over the years, I have been contacted a number of times by individuals that had executed poor contracts and were in a position of trying to resolve ongoing issues after the fact. If they had only looked closer at their contracts before they signed…
So, I wanted to share with you some of my experience, knowledge, and success in this area with the hope that after reading some of these tips you will not just accept an EHR deal and contract without looking out for your best interests. And that was the motivation behind this series of mini articles EHR Decisions will be bringing to you in the upcoming weeks.
Remember, the more you understand what you are signing and the more you have a hand in structuring your licensing contracts and support agreements, the better chance you ultimately have at long term success.
Michael Uretz has been involved with all aspects of technology selection, negotiation, and acquisition for almost 30 years. He presently serves as Executive Director of The EHR Group, a consultancy dedicated to providing guidance to healthcare organizations as they navigate through Electronic Health Record selection, contract negotiation, and project implementation.
Michael is considered one of the leading authorities on EHR Selection and Contract Negotiation. He is frequently asked to conduct EHR Vendor Selection and Contract negotiation seminars and workshops on both the state and national level and is the author of the CD “How to Survive Your EHR Contract.”
He can be reached at (425) 434-7102 or mikeu@ehrgroup.com.
HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt recently posted an update on his organization’s progress in the realm of electronic health records (EHR) and stimulating technology adoption.
And while the activities of CCHIT and other organization have had a significant impact, a number of challenges remain:
The number of hospitals and larger physician practices employing electronic medical records has grown. However, we continue to have a serious challenge with small- to medium-sized practices where fewer than 10 percent of these practices currently have health IT systems.
To get there from here, Leavitt advises, the US must begin to focus on “value-driven health care.”
