I recently starting running across an EMR website called EMR Edge – Electronic Medical Record Review and Rating. When I went to the website I was impressed by the sites design and some of the ideas they were showing on the site. In fact, the site even said at the top that it is “The Cutting Edge of the electronic medical record.”

Having this website I was of course interested in what other people were doing. I was particularly interested in the rating system they had going on since I’m interested in doing some sort of EMR rating/review in the future(yes, I have been saying this for a while).

My first sign that the site was outdated was when I saw the top 5 user rated EMR companies:
OmniMD, Practice Velocity EMR, SmartEMR, TouchWorks EMR, Accuchart

I’d heard of 2 of the 5 and the top rated EMR didn’t even have an image for it. It certainly made me wonder how good this site was. I will acknowledge that just because I haven’t heard of an EMR doesn’t mean they couldn’t be great. You’ve seen my list of EMR systems and so I definitely don’t know them all. However, I believe I’ve at least heard of most of the finest ones.

Regardless, as I surfed the rest of the site I realized that the site wasn’t being updated and in the list of 200 EMR systems only a quarter of them had been rated at all. The only article ever posted was over a year old and the EMR forum hadn’t been used in a long time and barely had any content.

It just amazes me that a website that looks so good could be so dissappointing. It also makes me wonder how many people have used that website to make a decision on an EMR product because of some ratings that could be very old and were hundreds of releases ago. I can feel the website developers pain. Keeping track of 200 EMR companies is practically impossible. My guess is that most EMR systems are able to put out at least 2 major releases a year. That’s why I haven’t tried to rate/review EMR systems YET. I’m sure I’ll find a way to start some day.

In the end, I think their website is mostly a nice marketing tool for them to find people interested in purchasing an EMR. I hope their emr consulting service is better updated than their website. If it is then I give them my admiration for creating a great marketing tool for an EMR consultant.

A nice little emr website I found has some ideas on getting started with an EMR. I thought I would take a few pieces of their ideas and add my own comments. You’ll soon find out that I found the website very pretty, but the content wasn’t that good. Disclaimer: I’m not trying to be denegrating(however you spell that word), but I do want to point out some of the sites that offer an “interesting” set of information.

If you need to read the following paragraph then you aren’t ready to be getting close to an EMR. Don’t plan on implementing an EMR within the next year. Do take the next year to learn about EMR and what it really means. This paragraph is like descibing medicine as curing people. Does that mean I’m ready to be a doctor? I think not!

Let’s start with the basics. An electronic medical record, which is also known as an EMR, is a computer based system that in theory allows one to practice medicine more efficiently, while at the same time making less mistakes. When searching for an EMR, you can choose from a range of products. You may choose to go with strictly an imaging software, or a notes system. Many of these basic packages are referred to as EMR Light systems. This means they do not have the connectivity or functionality that a full featured EMR has. That brings us to what is called an EHR or electronic health record. The term EHR will be used increasingly in the future as more of these EMR products are able to keep up on the technology side of things. An EHR is a fully functional type of EMR that includes options for interconnectivity outside of a single practice. For instance, an EHR would be able to draw information on a patient between unaffiliated practices or hospitals with different EMR products. In contrast, an EMR Light might not even have internet connectivity.

Has anyone ever heard the term EMR light? I don’t think that’s a term that anyone really uses.

Ideally, you want [in an EMR]:
* An EMR that can expand with your practice size
* An EMR that can expand functionality capabilities
* An EMR that has a great support team
* An EMR that is safe and secure
* An EMR that produces results
* An EMR that fits your budget
* An EMR company that has a lot invested (and re-invested) into research and development
* An EMR company that will stay up on the latest technological advances
* An EMR company that won’t go bankrupt in 2 years

Now how are you going to find this in a company? How do you measure these? Where’s my crystal ball? These are good things to consider, but I think the list isn’t a very practical list for those interested on implementing an EMR. Not to mention a list that newbie EMR users can really use.

This post seems rather cynical. I really am not cynical. EMR is the way to go, but there should be a method to anyone’s madness.