I’m sure that many of you probably don’t know the story and history of EMR and HIPAA. Some day I’ll have to share the entire story, but EMR and HIPAA has been around for about 6 years and about two years ago during a panel at HIMSS I announced that I was going to quit my job and become a full time blogger. I must admit that it is pretty much a dream for me that I’m able to be a full time blogger doing something that I love. A long time ago I chose advertising as my model for making this happen. Thankfully there have been a lot of great companies that have supported me and this blog. Many of them for many years.

As I do every couple months I like to recognize the new EMR and HIPAA advertisers and recognize those advertisers that have renewed their ads. Many of the ad renewals have been doing so for a lot of years. I might have to go back and research how long many of these advertisers have been renewing on EMR and HIPAA and recognize them for this in the future.

Also, we have a NEW service we’re offering, so read to the bottom to learn more.

New EMR and HIPAA Advertisers
Medical Mastermind – I’ve been talking with Medical Mastermind for a while now about advertising, so I’m glad that not only did they decide to advertise on EMR and HIPAA, but they’re advertising across the entire Healthcare Scene blog network. They are offering a special Buy 2 EMR licenses, Get 1 Free offer right now for readers of this blog. One thing I really like about Medical Mastermind is that over the past year or so they’ve come under new management that’s really taking them to the next level as a company. Plus, they have a bunch of clients that have been with them for a long time. It’s always great for a company to have a base of existing users that have been with them for a while.

PTS Consulting Group – PTS Consulting Group is a multi-national consulting group with offices in Boston, New York and London (to name a few). I know a number of the consultants out of Boston and they are some of the most pleasant and professional people you can meet. They have some great war stories and you might remember the meaningful use tool they created. If you’re looking for an EMR consultant, they offer a free phone consultation so you can see if they’re a good fit for your organization. Plus, one of their best resume items is that they’re regular readers of EMR and HIPAA (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself).

Valant Medical Solutions – Valant Medical Solutions offers an EHR focused solely on the mental health profession. No doubt they agree with me that there’s a huge opportunity available to specialty specific EHR software. I think few would argue that the mental health space has unique needs where they can benefit from a specialty specific EHR. Turns out investors seem to agree since Valant Medical recently closed an almost $1 million funding round. This is a good sign for mental health professionals looking for a mental health specific EHR that’s going to be around for a while to come.

Dynamic Vault – One of the things that I think clinics do incredibly poorly is making sure that they have a quality backup of their EHR system. I’ve done a whole series on EHR backups before and I should do it again. Dynamic Vault offers a service to help solve a lot of the EHR backup problems. They handle Access Controls, Audit Controls, Data Integrity and provide a contingency plan. I’d encourage every clinic to evaluate their EHR backup plan and make sure it is sound. Otherwise, you should check out a service like Dynamic Vault.

Renewing EMR and HIPAA Advertisers
Now a big thanks to the following advertisers that have renewed their ad on EMR and HIPAA: Cerner, Practice Fusion, SOAPware, EMR Consultant, and Sequelmed. There are a bunch more in the process of renewing too. Watch for another batch coming soon.

New Healthcare Scene Service
Over time Healthcare Scene has gotten a lot of requests from companies to create content for them. My normal response was that I really didn’t have time to create content for other places. As I’ve grown Healthcare Scene to now something like 10 writers (depending on how you count), I realized that we do have a bunch of talented people who could create content for other companies as well.

With this as inspiration, I got together with one of my writers, Anne Zieger to put together a new Healthcare Scene Content Service. In fact, we already have 3 clients we’re working with now on content creation with more in discussion. While we certainly are great at creating blog posts, Anne Zieger also has years of experience creating whitepapers, case studies, surveys, webinars and other custom content.

Besides our experience in the healthcare and healthcare IT space, our content creation service has the unique ability to also be able to distribute the content that’s created across the Healthcare Scene network. This makes for a really compelling opportunity for companies with a story to get their voice heard.

We’re putting the finishing touches on a PDF describing the various services we can offer and as webpage describing those services as well. Until then, if you’re interested in more details, drop me a line on our Contact Us page and we’ll get right back to you with more details.

I’ve been having a number of really interesting conversations with people about Pharma ads appearing in EHR and other clinical software. Most people’s gut reaction is that they don’t want their doctor seeing a pharma ad while he’s ePrescribing. However, most people also agree that there’s too much Pharma money for it not to happen.

In an article at Lab Soft News a few months back, they discuss the challenge and issues surrounding Pharma ads in an EHR:

Very distressing to me, however, is the clear link of the company, and its software, to the pharmaceutical industry. I have blogged on numerous occasions about some of the ethical and legal lapses of some of these companies (see, for example: On the Corrosive Influence of Big Pharma on Academic Physicians; Merck Creates Phony Peer-Reviewed Medical Journal to Dupe Physicians; Details Emerge About Ghost-Written Medical Articles for Wyeth). I have also reluctantly come to the conclusion that even apparently trivial advertising connections to Big Pharma can lead to mischief. I had previously thought that inconspicuous advertisements in EMRs by drug companies might be tolerated if the companies were to bear the costs of these systems. I now believe that allowing these companies even a tangential relationship to physician-office electronic medical records is too risky.

Certainly there are some really great points made. Absolutely there’s a risk that a doctor could be influenced by a pharma ad in an EHR. Will it make them provide a lower quality care because of the ad? I’m not sure it would. Could the care cost more because of the pharma ad? Possibly so. Do we not trust our doctors to do what’s best for us regardless of the other outside influences?

Back to the initial premise, many are concerned with Pharma ads, but they’re bound to happen anyway. So, I ask you the question, is there any way to have Pharma ads without compromising the integrity of the visit? Is there a way to minimize the influence of Pharma while still allowing them a way to talk with the doctor?

No doubt this discussion is going to come up again and again. With Pharma unable to even give a doctor a pen we’re going to see new creative ways for Pharma to be seen by doctors. Advertising Pharma products to patients won’t be enough.

As most of you know, the way I’m able to run EMR and HIPAA and the rest of the Healthcare Scene blog network is thanks to the great EMR & Health IT advertisers that support the work we do. Luckily, we and our advertisers have done really well. In fact, I just noticed last night that a couple weeks ago EMR and HIPAA itself just passed 5 million pageviews (5,062,416 if you’re keeping count). Thankfully readership continues to increase across the whole network.

One challenge that some advertisers have with my current advertising is that it’s a flat rate for the month. In order to solve this problem, I’m launching a new advertising option that’s done on a CPC (cost per click) basis. This is the same model that Google Adwords uses, but you’ll be able to do it on a set of very targeted EMR, EHR and healthcare IT websites. I’m doing my initial tests for this on EMR Thoughts & EMR and EHR videos. If you’re interested in trying out this performance based advertising, drop me a line on our contact us page and I’ll send you more details.

If you like this type of performance based advertising and you have an important EMR or healthcare IT message to get out, wait until you see what I have brewing at Influential Networks.

Enough about the exciting changes to the EMR and HIPAA advertising. Now a look at the new Advertisers on EMR and HIPAA.
EHR Selector – As some of you might remember, I wasn’t a big fan of EHR Selector in the past, because I didn’t think many doctors would want to pay what they were charging to use their service. However, EHR selector came to me wanting to advertise their special 6 month free offering to use their EHR selection service and that was something I could get on board and support. EHR Selector has some of the most granular EHR company filtering that’s out there. They’ve added nice filters like the EHR Certification status of each EHR software. Sign up (It’s free after all) if you’re looking at selecting an EHR or helping others select an EHR.

Elsevier – This is a very large company with a wide variety of healthcare products. I’ll just focus on the one that they’re advertising on EMR and HIPAA: Gold Standard Drug Database. I believe most parts of an EMR should be built in house, but the one part of an EMR that is definitely better to get from a third party provider is the drug database. Gold Standard Drug Database is one option that EMR and EHR vendors should consider. It combines current, accurate content along with intelligent decision support for your drug database. The best part is that as an EHR company you don’t have to keep it up to date since Elsevier is already doing that for you and pushing you the updates.

Cerner – Many of you might remember my previous interviews with Cerner meaningful use physician #23 and Jan Patterson. Cerner has been a major player in the EHR industry for quite a while despite many people not really knowing much about them. A simple example of how large they are is that Cerner Ambulatory clients have secured more than $3.3 million in Meaningful Use incentives. Divide that by the $18,000 per provider and that’s a lot of providers using Cerner ambulatory EHR.

Also, as always, I don’t want to forget to thank those advertisers that have renewed their EMR and HIPAA ad. Since the last time I posted, SOAPware, Mitochon, HIT Forum, and Sequelmed have all renewed their ad. Thanks for supporting us. If you enjoy the content I create, then please take a second to check out these advertisers.

Now on to the next 5 million pageviews on EMR and HIPAA. A big thanks to all those that read our work.

Every couple months I like to take a bit of an inventory on EMR and HIPAA along with recognizing new advertisers to the EMR and HIPAA family along. Not to mention send out a big thanks to all those advertisers who have renewed during that time period as well.

EMR and HIPAA is still doing more amazing than I ever thought it could. During the slow summer months we’re still averaging about 4500 pageviews per day. In fact, we’re inching ever closer to 5 million pageviews since we first started tracking the stats. I think I might have to celebrate the day we reach that landmark.

This will be the 1,139th post on EMR and HIPAA and we’ve had 5,590 comments made. That’s roughly 5 comments per post. So thank you to all those who contribute to the amazing community that exists around EMR and HIPAA. Much of the best information happens in the comments.

I’m also really excited to say that we just passed 3000 email subscriptions to EMR and HIPAA as well. Pretty amazing since I only started the email newsletter a short while ago.

New Advertisers
A number of advertisers started their ad campaign on EMR and HIPAA since I last posted. Many of them are really benefiting from the rotating sidebar ads that I announced last post. You can find more details on EMR and HIPAA advertising.

GFI – FaxMaker – GFI offers a number of interesting services for small to medium size businesses. One that’s particularly interesting in the healthcare space is called the GFI FaxMaker. If you don’t already have a fax server in your office, go and read my post about the virtues of a fax server in healthcare.

Quest – Care360 – I’ve long been intrigued by the Quest EHR model. I think that having an EHR from your lab company provides some interesting benefits that can’t be realized by other EHR vendors. Plus, I love the idea that their EHR is already setup for thousands of doctor’s offices who already use Care360 for their labs. All they have to do is turn on the EHR module. That’s a compelling reason for many clinics to consider the Care360 EHR.

Amazing Charts – Amazing Charts has become not only an advertiser on EMR and HIPAA, but you’ll see them across the entire network of Healthcare Scene websites. Amazing Charts was one of the first EHR vendors to offer a relatively inexpensive EHR product. They were one of the first companies to move the EHR cost needle while still providing a high quality product. Amazing Charts was started by a practicing family physician, you can read about his and the Amazing Chart journey here.

Health Informatics Forum – A great health informatics forum that’s run by the incredibly interesting Chris Paton. The forum has over 5,000 members discussing a variety of healthcare informatics topics. One of the things I like most about the forum is the real international flavor. I love learning from healthcare informatics in other countries. This healthcare informatics forum is a good place to start.

Renewing Advertisers
Of course, I’m always overwhelmed by the number of companies that continue to renew their advertising on EMR and HIPAA. Thanks this time to Practice Fusion, EMR Consultant, MxSecure, Mitochon Systems, Nuesoft, Sequelmed, Scantronix, Medical Web Experts, and GE Centricity Advance for all renewing their ads. Almost everyone on that list has been long time supporters of what we do at EMR and HIPAA.

Things are rocking and rolling here at EMR and HIPAA and Healthcare Scene. As you have probably seen, I’ve been working really hard to provide a platform for the independent voices in healthcare IT. We currently have 8 blogs in the Healthcare Scene blog network and 3 more in beta that will be announced officially in the next week.

If you’ve read this blog, you know that I’m narrowly focused on bringing good information to doctors and practice managers. I sincerely don’t have any particular agendas or hidden motives. My goal is to provide some amount of transparency and quality information to the masses mixed in with some thoughtful commentary on the world of EMR, EHR and Healthcare IT. Hopefully that’s what you see when you read.

A couple of the new blogs I’ll be officially launching in the next week will help in that goal as well. Not to mention a couple other side projects which I’m working on which could be really exciting if all goes well. Was that vague enough for you?

A big thank goes out to the EMR and HIPAA advertisers. They keep the lights on and let me do this as a full time job. Not to mention, I’ve even been able to start hiring some other writers like Neil Versel (see Neil Versel’s EMR and HIPAA posts). Since I last posted I’ve added one new advertiser and had 7 of my current advertisers renew. I love new advertisers, but it makes me feel really good when advertisers renew.

New Advertiser
SynaMed – A web based EMR with fully integrated PM system. Yes, they are ONC-ATBC 2011/2012 Certified as a Complete EHR. They offer an affordable monthly subscription, no startup-fees, no hidden costs, and training and support included at no additional cost. Synamed was founded in 1999 by a physician in New York City with thousands of medical practitioners and patients across the US.

Renewing Advertisers
Intersystems, Sfax, Enterprise Software Deployment, MDCare EMR, MxSecure, eDoctor, Inc, Mitochon Systems

Starting July 1st, I have some nice changes for advertisers. The goal being to provide all advertisers equal exposure to the top spots on EMRandHIPAA.com. I also completed a Healthcare Scene media kit for those interested in advertising on any of the Healthcare Scene network of sites. If you’re interested, just leave me a note on our Contact Us page.

If you have any thoughts on how we can make EMRandHIPAA.com or any part of the Healthcare Scene network of blogs better, let us know. We’re always open to feedback.

A few months back I got to know Anne Zeiger and brought her on as a blogger for a little while on EMR and EHR. She’s since moved on to a full time job writing about EMR and has started to create the website EHR Outlook. It’s still in the really early phases, but you can see a vision for what she’s trying to create.

Anne is currently looking for more doctors who use an EMR so she can create some case studies of doctors’ EMR experiences. I know that I always learn best by looking at other people’s experiences, so I’m happy to help Anne find more doctors she can work with to create more case studies on EMR. If you’re a doctor or practice that would be willing to help Anne out, you can email her at: anneczieger@gmail.com

I’ll be interested to see the EMR case studies that she creates. If you know of other EMR case studies, feel free to point them out in the comments.

Also, I just started looking for advertisers for Neil Versel’s blog Meaningful HIT News and my new EMR and Healthcare IT News site if anyone’s interested in some new advertising opportunities. Just drop me a note on my contact us page.

It’s been about 3 months since I posted about healthcare IT advertising and the advertisers that keep EMR and HIPAA running. However, I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately about healthcare IT advertising since before HIMSS I’m planning:
1. A New Premium Advertising Package Announcement
2. Launch of a New Healthcare Blog Network

In those discussions (and certainly influenced by the crazy money spent by vendors for HIMSS), I like to give this comparison:
“Compare what you spend at a conference like HIMSS with the 1 million ad impressions a 6 month ad run (Currently $2100) on EMRandHIPAA.com will provide.”

Yep, it costs vendors more to fly people out to a conference than it does to advertise on a very targeted EMR site. I’m currently working on a media kit to help better quantify the value that an advertiser on EMRandHIPAA.com and our family of websites provides.

Even with my pretty simple EMRandHIPAA.com advertising page, we’ve had a lot of very supportive advertisers. In fact, since the last time I posted about new EMR and HIPAA advertisers, I’ve had 8 existing advertisers renew their ads and 3 new advertisers sign up. New advertisers are always great, but there’s a great feeling when an existing advertiser renews since that means they’re getting real value from their investment.

On that note, here’s a look at the 3 new advertisers:

Mitochon – I first met the people behind Mitochon at last year’s HIMSS. They have a real vision for how they think that EHR adoption will occur and I won’t be surprised if they’re right. They offer a Free Certified SaaS EHR, but that’s only the start of their services. They really believe that some of the biggest benefits of EHR is in virtual medical communities. So, they offer an integrated HIE, EMR and PHR. One of the best features of a free EHR is that you can signup for free and try out the full application. So, go check it out and let me know what you think.

Nuesoft – I have a soft place in my heart for Nuesoft. No, not because they created the brilliant Lady Gaga HL7 Interface video. I think fondly of Nuesoft since they were the first EMR I came across when I started working in healthcare IT. The intense 3 day training at their offices was the start of my EMR education. I’m really happy to have their support as an advertiser. Beyond their SaaS EHR offering, they also recently announced the launch of a medical billing service called Nuetopia.

Medical Web Experts – This is a new type of advertiser for EMR and HIPAA since it’s a marketing company that does advertising for a number of different healthcare IT companies. Some of the companies they work with include: PrognoCIS, EMR Consultant, EliteHealthm Phylogic and EMR Experts. John Deutsch is the mastermind behind Medical Web Experts and he also was my very first advertiser on EMRandHIPAA.com. He took the leap advertising on my site in the very early days. It’s great to have him back again.

Thanks also to those advertisers that renewed their ads: Intersystems, PracticeFusion, SOAPware, Ambir, MD-IT, MDCare, MxSecure,and SequelMed.

Side Note: If you’re interested in advertising on EMR and HIPAA, I’d act quickly since the price for the ads is going to increase heading into HIMSS.

I’m pretty pumped right now since this weekend is probably the best weekend (traffic wise) that EMR and HIPAA has ever had. I’m not sure the difference, but thanks to all of you who have been reading over the weekend. The weekend is usually pretty dead around EMR and HIPAA and so it’s awesome to get some great traffic to the site on the weekend. Plus, I just checked and it’s pretty cool that EMR and HIPAA (this site) just passed 3.5 million pageviews and EMR and EHR just passed half a Million. Not bad.

Top EMR and HIPAA Ads
Tomorrow or the next day I’m planning to send out the details on the top ads on EMR and HIPAA. As I did 6 months ago, I’ll be opening up the bidding for the top 2 ads on the site. So many people have been interested in the top ads that I figured it was the only fair way to approach it.

If you’re interested in the top ad spots on EMR and HIPAA, let me know on the EMR and HIPAA contact us page or comment below and I’ll copy you in on the email I send out with all the details. Current advertisers don’t need to message me since I’ll be emailing them already.

I’m also really close to launching my previous mentioned Deluxe Advertising Package. I don’t quite have all the details but I’m close. If you want to be the first to sign up for it, you’d likely be in a good position to get one of the top EMR ad spots.

New EMR Projects
I’m also close to announcing some exciting news about some new EMR projects I’m working on. I think it will be some great stuff that people who read this site are going to love. More on that once I finalize some of the details.

EMR Jobs
All we hear about on the news these days seems to be about the bad economy and all the people that are unemployed. So, I’m always really happy to see the jobs posted on the EMR and EHR job board. For example, there was one recently posted for 4 Full time Epic Application Specialists. The cool part about the job listing is that they’ll even cover the cost for a person’s EPIC training and certification. If you’d like to work in hospital healthcare IT working on EPIC, take a look.

New EMR Doctor Blog
I’m really excited to let you all know about a new EMR Doctor blog called Wired EMR Practice. It’s a blog that I’m doing in partnership with a practicing doctor. I do the hosting, marketing and management of the website and he creates the content. It’s still a very new blog, but check out his post on Physicians vs. Health IT: The EMR Culture War and this post on the ROI of EMR to get a flavor of the content he will be creating. If you like it, you can subscribe by email to the Wired EMR Practice.

The Wired EMR Practice has already landed its first founding advertiser and we’re interested in talking with other people interested in advertising on the site. Those interested can just let us know on our Contact Us page.

Premium EMR and Healthcare IT Advertising Package
For those who read this blog and care about advertising their company, I am working on a new Premium Advertising package. I’ll probably launch it a month or so before HIMSS. It’s going to be a comprehensive advertising package across all of the EMR and HIPAA, EMR and EHR, and Wired EMR Practice network of sites. Not to mention on Twitter, Facebook, and other very targeted EMR related locations. Yes, I think they call this a teaser. Watch for more information on this and if you’re interested, let me know and maybe your company can be part of my new advertising package announcement.

EMR and HIPAA Advertisers
Well, I was looking back at my posts and it looks like it’s been a couple months since I recognized my new and renewing advertisers for EMR and HIPAA. What can I say? I’ve been really busy creating all the content, traveling to a number of conferences and actually adding and renewing advertisers.

Needless to say, I’m very grateful for all of those companies that support EMR and HIPAA with their advertising dollars. Looking at the very high rate of renewal, I think it’s pretty clear that the advertisers are finding value as well.

Without further ado…
New Advertiser
eDoctor, Inc. – eDoctor, Inc. offers a comprehensive electronic prescription system, patient data migration services, and premiere health IT support to healthcare professionals. If you’re looking for an ePrescribing solution, take a look at their free e-Rx software. Looks like they also have an EMR in the oven, called urEMR, that’s set to go live on 12/1/10. We’ll have to keep an eye on that.

Renewing Advertisers
The list of renewing advertisers is quite long. It’s always very satisfying to have my current advertisers renew. Many of these advertisers have been doing so for a couple years. So, thank you!
Intersystems
Sfax
ESD
MDCare
MxSecure
The Drug Company
MD-IT
EMR Consultant

Those interested in advertising on EMR and HIPAA can find more details here.

EMR and Healthcare IT Jobs
Finally, I’m sure there are many that read this blog that are still looking for jobs in the EMR and/or healthcare IT field. If you are, there are a bunch of jobs listed on the EMR and EHR job board. For example, one that was just posted yesterday is for a NextMD Implementation Specialist. Hopefully more of you will post the jobs you have as well.

I’ve really enjoyed the support of many people here on EMR and HIPAA. There’s a strong community here on EMR and HIPAA and plenty of new readers that keep things interesting. Then, of course I’m always grateful to the advertisers on EMR and HIPAA who support everything I do on EMR and HIPAA. As an example, here’s an unsolicited email I got recently from Brittanie Good, Director of Marketing – Enterprise Software Deployment:

“I wanted to give you props regarding our advertisement with EMR and HIPAA. Our ad on HIStalk has been up since the launch of our new website in March, and already we have had the same number of hits from the HISTalk ad as we have had from the EMR and HIPAA ad, which went live at the end of June.

Not only do you have loyal readership – your readers are also loyal to your ads and have increased traffic to our website. Thanks!”

Thanks to the loyal readers of EMR and HIPAA and the advertisers that support us.

On that note, here’s a look at the new advertisers on EMR and HIPAA (Learn more about Advertising on EMR and HIPAA):
SOAPware – I’ve known and respected the people at SOAPware for quite a while and so I’m really proud to have them as an advertiser. They were initially an EMR only software product, but just recently launched a totally integrated PMS system to compliment their EMR software. SOAPware was started by a doctor and is one of the most physician and patient minded EMR companies I’ve seen.

SimplifyMD – This EMR solution hits at the core of what we believe at EMR and HIPAA. It’s a no debt solution that focuses on simplifying the implementation process and allows you to discontinue using the EMR if you aren’t satisfied with it. Plus, they seem to have the right focus on physician efficiency.

Thanks also to SFax, Sequelmed, and The Drug Company for renewing their ads as well.

Tomorrow and Friday I’ll be attending the Digital Medical Office of the Future: Driving Toward Meaningful Use Conference and Exhibition. I think it’s going to be a really interesting conference full of good information. You can be sure much of the content over the next week will be things I learned and saw at the conference. I guess reading this blog will be the next best thing to being there in person.