Welcome to EMR and HIPAA

Today I was approached by a part time doctor who has been working in the clinic that I support. He is starting a new medical practice and expressed in a very excited nature his need to get an EMR with integrated billing. In fact, he repeated his need to get an EMR quick. I of course told him the proper answer(in my mind).
“I can’t just tell you XYZ vendor is the best EMR for you and your practice without knowing how you want to practice medicine and which type of data entry and flow works best for you. There are too many choices out there. I could give you a list of good choices that you would need to test and see which one fits your style.”

My counsel to Doctors is this: EMR’s are like wives. Everyone likes them a little different. So, don’t ask me which EMR you should marry until you tell me what things you like. In fact, this exposes the real issue. What do you really want in an EMR? Knowing this takes time. Don’t rush it.

I’ve been coming accross a few different EMR and Health Information Management organizations that I probably should have known about if I was going to claim to have an EMR blog. Here’s are a few that I have found during my start into EMR blogging. I admit that I’ve only found a couple so far, but I figured if I posted the few that I’ve found here I might here from some of my readers on other organizations I should know about and follow.
HIMSS - Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society
TEPR - Towards the Electronic Patient Record

ASTM - Continuity of Care Record(CCR) Standard
HL7 - HL7 Standard

I know I’m missing a lot, but I’m sure my trusty readers will let me know of any others worth mentioning. I also must admit that I wish I would have gone to either the HIMSS or TEPR conference this year. I should have planned better. The HIMSS 2006 would have been really cool because I could have gone to the blogger meetup. Maybe next year.