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6 responses to "My EHR Consultant Article as a Podcast"

1. # Andrew Eriksen commented on May 1st, 2009:

   I just want to comment on the quality of your content. I appreciate the thought you put into your posts. I own a medical billing company and have 8 blogs that I try to keep updated. I don’t think people realize how much thought has to go into every article.

2. # John commented on May 1st, 2009:

   Andrew,
   Thanks for your kind words. I don’t always nail the great content goal, but that’s always my aim.

   Along the lines of what you said, I don’t think people realize the reading that’s required to create great blog posts. It’s really true when they say that a great writer is a great reader.

   8 blogs is a lot to maintain. I won’t tell you how many I have;-)

3. # Andrew Eriksen commented on June 1st, 2009:

   John,

   What are your thoughts on the Free EMRs out there? I am considering shifting the focus of my company to work with practices to purchase and implement the right EMR solution for their practice. We currently only have contracts with Eclipsys(Medinotes) and AdvancedMD but I am looking at expanding our partners.

   Currently, our model is strictly a service oriented model, similar to that of MTBC and Athena. I maintain FreeEMRSolution.com. and want to provide the best solutions to my readers. I read your recent post but wanted your (biased) thoughts on what I should recommend as a Free EMR solution. The service model(like ours :) works well for smaller offices that are already outsourcing, but for the larger groups this is just not conceivable. I would like to use the FreeEMR site to promote and recommend GOOD products that are actually worth someone looking into. Now whether or not they will actually qualify for any stimulus money is another issue.

   Thanks again for the great reads, we appreciate it.

   Best,
   Andrew Eriksen

4. # John commented on June 1st, 2009:

   Andrew,
   I’m surprised you think my thoughts are biased. I’m completely unbiased I am fairly opinionated, but my goal is to just be right in my opinions. I certainly fail on occasion, but that’s alright. Luckily when I’m wrong my readers are always happy to correct me in the comments.

   Although I do admit that one thing I haven’t really done is recommend a specific EMR company. I do this partially because I think there are many EMR companies that can work and the selection of an EMR is so clinic specific that it would be a real mistake for me to blindly recommend one product for a clinic.

   So, that partially applies to Free EMR projects as much as any other EMR company. What I do think is worth sharing is that it seems to me that there seems to be a real growing group of open source EMR advocates. This is key, because the success of any open source (free) EMR software. The more active and involved the developer community and user base the better the project will do. Although, I would caution that it should also have good leadership and direction. You might take a look through this list to check out a few of the open source EMR products: http://www.emrandhipaa.com/wiki/Open_Source_and_Free_EMR_and_EHR_Companies

   Hopefully that helps. I know it’s kind of a vague answer. You might also check out the open source EMR fanatic: http://www.fredtrotter.com/ He’s a little bias to the open source EMR he works with, but he’s also pretty familiar with the activity in the open source EMR world.

5. # Andrew Eriksen commented on June 1st, 2009:

   John,

   I appreciate your input and I will check these recommendations out. Just to be clear, you are always so unbiased, I was actually hoping for you to be more biased with your answer:).

   I completely understand the difficulty in recommending a program for a practice without the proper evaluation. So many of the companies out there are claiming to have “your solution”, and practices are signing up because of most of them do not have a CFO/Administrator who can help in the decision making.

   I have worked with so many offices this year who spent thousands on an EMR product a year ago and either have yet to implement it or have decided that the program will not work for their office. A hospital system we are working with spent around 50 million (it is a small hospital) over two years ago and because of management issues has yet to implement the software.

   The more we get involved in the market the more I am understanding what a mess it is. Your site is helping clear things up, keep it up.

   Thanks again for the info.
   Andrew

6. # John commented on June 2nd, 2009:

   Andrew,
   I guess my bias is more expensive;-) Although, I must admit the more research I do on EMR software, the more I realize that every EMR is a beast and you just have to choose which beast you prefer.

   You are so right about many not having the right people in place to be able to make this very important decision. It’s unfortunate.

   Your example of $50 million and 2 years later no EMR is amazing, but not only isolated to healthcare unfortunately. Put the wrong people in charge of the IT project and you get the same.

   We do have an uphill battle, but it’s definitely worth fighting.