Welcome to EMR and HIPAA

In my recent post about EMR site visits, I got a comment from prakash about what questions a doctor should ask an EMR vendor. He gave me the following list of preliminary questions:

What is the cost per physician license?
Do you have any existing clients in our specialty?
Does your system come pre-loaded with templates for my specialty?
Is your company the developers of the software or is it re-branded from another vendor?
Is your system client/server based or ASP based?
Does your system include practice management software?
How many clients does your company have?
Is your system HL7 compliant?
How long has your company been in business?
Is your development done overseas?
Is support done overseas?
Is your software CCHIT certified? If not, why?
How often is the software updated?

I don’t think this is nearly a comprehensive list of questions. In fact, I think it just is the tip of the iceberg. I also would consider changing some of the way the questions are phrased. However, I thought it was a good starting point that could be built out over time. In fact, I think I’m going to make a static page on this website for these type of questions.

Hopefully, my valuable readers will continue to point me to other good resources that might have a nice list of questions that I can continue to compile into a valuable resource for those searching for an EMR. Just post a comment if you have other questions you think should be asked or know of other resources and I’ll continue to compile questions for EMR vendors.

Thanks Prakash.

Trusted.MD is planning a healthcare blogging conference here in my hometown of Las Vegas. They held one in DC in 2006 that looked quite good. I wish that I could be on one of panels they have planned. I’d love to meet and be on a panel with Tom Eng the Chairman & CTO of Healia. I’ve blogged about the Healia search engine a few times before. Plus, the topic of that panel is “Find and Be Found: Search, Distribution and Reputation Management & Measurement” That’s perfect for me. I’d also like it because then I could probably go to the conference for free.

Anyway, here’s what’s planned for the conference:

9:00 – 9:50 Keynote: Public Health Outlook for 21st Century
Blogging and New Media in Health Promotion and Protection

* Jay Bernhardt, PhD, MPH: Director, National Center for Health Marketing, CDC

10:00 – 10:50 Panel: Open Healthcare – Learning to Live in the Brave New World
Openness, Controversy and Crisis Management in Blogs and Social Media

* Dmitriy Kruglyak (Moderator): CEO, Trusted.MD Network
* Matthew Holt: Author & Consultant, The Health Care Blog
* Nicholas Jacobs, FACHE: CEO, Windber Medical Center & Research Institute
* Robert L. Coffield, JD: Member, Flaherty, Sensabaugh & Bonasso, PLLC
* Elisa Cooper: Whistleblower, formerly with Kaiser Permanente

11:00 – 11:50 Panel: Navigating the Blogosphere - Find and Be Found
Search, Distribution and Reputation Management & Measurement

* Fard Johnmar (Moderator): Founder, Envision Solutions LLC
* Tom Eng: Chairman & CTO, Healia
* Constantin Basturea: Director, New Media Strategies, Converseon
* John Mack, MA, MS, MPhil: President, VirSci Corporation; Publisher, Pharma Marketing Network

12:00 – 1:20 Lunch

1:30 – 2:20 Workshop: Creating a Presence – Plan and Develop Your Blog
Strategy and Tactics on Establishing Your Social Media Presence

* Toby Bloomberg (Moderator): President, Bloomberg Marketing;
* Dale Hunscher: Author, Business Blogging 4 Healthcare Professionals
* Philippa Kennealy, MD: President & Coach, Entrepreneurial MD
* Mike Smith: President, Michael Smith Business Development

2:30 – 3:20 Panel: Using New Media in Health & Medical Education
Practical Lessons from the High-Profile Case Studies and Leading Practitioners

* Carol Kirshner (Moderator): VP, Promedica Research Center
* Paul Costello: Executive Director, Communication & Public Affairs, Stanford School of Medicine [invited]
* Ves Dimov, MD: Clinical Assistant Profession & Director of Web based Medical Education, Cleveland Clinic [invited]
* Gary Levin, MD: Physician Educator & Coordinator of Inland Empire RHIO
* Margaret Moore: CEO, Wellcoaches

3:30 – 4:20 Panel: Using New Media to Market (or Motivate?) Behavior Change
Practical Lessons from the High-Profile Case Studies and Leading Practitioners

* Nedra Weinreich (Moderator): President, Weinreich Communications
* Fabio Gratton: Chief Innovation Officer, Ignite Health
* Debbie Donovan: Director, Corporate Communications, Conceptus
* Adam Pellegrini, Strategic Director Online, American Cancer Society
* Graham McReynolds, VP, Marketing, National Multiple Sclerosis Society
* Ralph De Simone, Internet Marketing Specialist, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

The past couple weeks I’ve gotten a few emails and phone calls from my EMR vendor about having a few other college health clinics(doctor’s offices) come and take a look at our EMR implementation. I always go into these with a little bit of a mixed bag since I know that my EMR vendor would like me to speak positively to the client. In fact, in many ways it is in my best interest to help make my EMR vendor successful. The more offices my EMR vendor signs up, the more money they’ll have to stay around and continue to develop the product. However, I always wonder if the trade is really a fair one.

In the end, I love to have other people come and take a look at my EMR implementation. My wife just gave birth to our second child. You know I’m that proud daddy carrying around his little princess to show her off to all those around me. My EMR implementation isn’t that much different. It’s my little baby that I want to show off to other people.

Another part of the satisfaction of a site visit is that my EMR vendor is saying that our implementation of EMR is one of their premier implementations(yes, I know that is a run on sentence, but I’m too tired to fix it now). An EMR company wouldn’t send clients to a failed or shoddy implementation. I take real pride in that recognition.

However, the best part of site visits is the time to be able to connect and collaborate with other colleagues from around the country. It’s always fun to get a different perspective on what should be very similar processes. Plus, I just love interacting with people. We have two coming up in the next month. I’ll let you know how they go. If they don’t buy me lunch then you can guarantee they weren’t as good.

I was cleaning out my email and came across the following email:

I am enjoying your website!

Keep up the good work. We all need to keep the vision alive.

What a great email. Sometimes you wonder how many people are really finding what you write useful. I’ve created a decent body of work on this website. There’s certainly much more that I could do if I just committed a little more time.

In honor of this email I’m planning on “keeping the vision alive” and committing a little more time to enhancing EMR and most importantly EMR implementations.