UPDATE: Excuse the personal reminiscing. Sometimes I just can’t resist. There will be more great EMR content tomorrow for those who don’t care for this type of post.

Let’s just say that’s a lot of pageviews. It’s pretty humbling and demanding to think how many people have read and will read what I write on this blog. I don’t think I had any clue what I was getting into when I did my first post back on December 11, 2005. A great line from that first post:
“if you find some good information that I haven’t seen and correct me if I’m wrong.”
This has certainly happened plenty of times. Sometimes it hurts a little to be corrected, but mostly it’s a great way to learn.

Then, this little disclaimer from my first post:
“This is my best knowledge from my research and is not guaranteed in anyway.”
This disclaimer is still in effect. Although, I’ve come a long ways since I first started blogging.

I also find it amazing that the stats for the audience for this site is bigger than the most excellent of HIT blogs: HISTalk. They show 3.34 million pageviews since June, 20 2003. That’s a good 1.5 to 2 years before I started my stats tracking. Plus, they posted their July stats as: 97,368 visits, 138,957 page views. EMR and HIPAA did 149,802 pageviews and 97,274 visits in July. I’m not sure what stats program they’re using so maybe it’s off, but it’s nice to think that EMR and HIPAA has a similar size audience to HISTalk.

For those who love stats (like me), EMR and HIPAA has had 830 posts and 3,548 comments since 2005. By comparison, my much younger EMR and EHR site has had 186 posts and 652 comments with getting close to 400,000 pageviews since April 30, 2009.

I could go on forever, but I won’t bore you anymore. Although, some of my EMR and HIPAA advertisers have asked for more details on the stats for EMR and HIPAA. I usually email them the details, but I’m thinking about starting a blog for people to see all the stats. I guess I’m just not sure who would really care to see it.

Either way, I really do appreciate the readers and advertisers of EMR and HIPAA. Hopefully you’ve benefited from my posts as much as I’ve benefited from your comments and insight. Interestingly, I think the question I get asked most often is how I’m able to post so often. I don’t really have a good answer for that question. Although, I do let people in on my little secret called “scheduled posts.” Plus, at this point I have a special blog posting lens where my brain turns everything I read into a blog post. Not to mention my 300 or so draft blog post ideas is useful too.

Now on to the next 3 million pageviews. I predict 3-5 more years of EMR meaningful use blogging and then we start the next era of EMR blogging: switching EMR vendors. As long as people still need healthcare, there will always be plenty of healthcare IT to write about.

It seems to me like EMR marketing is really kicking into gear now that we have the meaningful use final rule. Makes sense with the intense competition that’s happening between the 300+ EMR vendors.

One EMR vendor recently emailed me about advertising on EMR and HIPAA. He summed it up really well when he said, “We are looking at actually doing some advertisement other than big publications that charge us 20K.” Honestly, it still amazes me how much money companies pour into the various trade magazines when they could advertise for an entire year on this site for a fraction of the cost.

On that note, I’d like to welcome 2 new advertisers to EMR and HIPAA:
Enterprise Software Deployment – I actually met the people behind Enterprise Software Deployment at a virtual conference for healthcare IT and loved my interaction with the company. They offer a full suite of services to support your EHR implementation. These types of services are going to be in high demand. Check out their list of EHR software they support.

MDCare EMR – A Preliminary ARRA IFR Stage 1 Certified EHR. They offer a full integrated EMR and PMS. Check out their list of EMR features here.

I also want to thank Intersystems, Practice Fusion and Ambir Scanners for recently renewing their advertisements on EMR and HIPAA. It’s always gratifying when advertisers continue to renew.

Thanks for reading EMR and HIPAA and for supporting the advertisers of this site as well. I’ve got a few more in the hopper, but they’re not quite final so I’ll talk about them later.

I’m usually pretty quick to adopt technology and ways to promote this blog. For example, I’ve been on Twitter for a long time as @ehrandhit. It’s taken a while to get to 4472 followers on Twitter, but it’s pretty cool to see that there are that many people interested in electronic medical record on Twitter.

For some reason though, I’ve kind of avoided using Facebook to promote this site. I think that there’s probably a part of me that wanted to keep my personal life (Facebook) away from my EMR life. Not because I have anything in my personal life to hide. Probably more about the other direction. I didn’t necessarily want to talk about EMR in my personal life. Which doesn’t make that much sense, because I love talking to doctors or other people about my EMR stuff.

Well, all of that background aside, I decided it was time to start a Facebook fan page for EMR and HIPAA. So, if you’re on Facebook, feel free to say you like EMR and HIPAA. Right now it pulls in both this site and my EMR and EHR website. I imagine I’ll tie it into Twitter as well at some point. That way you’re getting all the great EMR info you want.

Also, if you haven’t found it already, you can also subscribe to EMR and HIPAA by email. One person told me it’s their daily morning read. That’s a little scary for me to think about, but I’m also flattered that it’s the case.

EMR Presentations
As many of you know, I’ve really enjoyed the chances I’ve had to go and speak to groups about Electronic Medical Records (EMR). I haven’t done it all that much since I had a full time job back then, but now that I’m working for myself I have a bit more time to do some EMR speaking engagements.

For those interested in bringing me out to speak to their organization, I’ve created an EMR and HIPAA Speaking page. I’ve included a short bio (first time I’ve posted that) on that page along with a sample EMR stimulus presentation that I did last year. If you’re interested, please send me a note on this contact page.

EMR Advertising
In other news, there has been quite a bit of interest in the top 2 ads on EMR and HIPAA. Both of those ads become available starting July 1. In order to fill those spots the most fair way possible, I’ve decided to open up the bidding for those top 2 ad spots. Basically, the ad spots will go to the most attractive bid. As before, current advertisers will be given priority if 2 bids are similar. If you’re interested in participating, let me know and I’ll keep you in the loop.

I also want to welcome a new advertiser to EMR and HIPAA:
MedicalVar.com – This website connects medical professionals to Value Added Resellers (VARs). The only way you can buy Dragon Naturally Speaking Medical version is through a VAR. So, MedicalVar.com is a service to help you locate a VAR for DNS Medical.

Thanks for renewing also goes out to long time advertiser EMR Consultant and MD-IT who advertises on EMR and HIPAA & EMR and EHR. Check out more details about advertising on EMR and HIPAA.

EMR Jobs
Finally, I don’t think that many realize that EMR and HIPAA has an EMR job board. Only costs $30 to post to it and it gets exposure on both of my EMR sites. For example, here’s a job that was just recently posted to it:
Healthcare Practice Manager, Program Manager with HIPAA / 5010

P.S. I’m leaving town next week for a scout trip where I won’t have internet access. If someone would like to guest post while I’m gone let me know. Otherwise, I’ll try to write ahead and schedule the posts to appear. I’d hate for people to go without their daily dose of EMR and HIPAA.

I told you on the weekends I’d try to go through and highlight some of my previous 774 posts (but who’s counting?). Obviously, there’s a lot to choose from. So, this time I decided to hit the big red button on my stats program that said “Top Posts for All Time” Yes, that’s crunching 2,636,682 pageviews to provide this data. That’s right. Over 2.6 million pageviews. I kind of shutter thinking about that. Plus, I didn’t implement this stats system (since it didn’t exist) until well into this blog, but I digress.

2 posts that I knew would be near the top is my Overwhelming List of EMR Companies post which I did back on 2/21/06 and my EMR and EHR vendors page. The former just barely edged out the prior.

Man a lot has changed since early 2006 with that list of EMR vendors. Kind of fun to look back at the state of EMR vendors in 2006. A lot more entrants. Also, I’ve mostly stopped updating that page, and instead have been linking to this EMR and EHR matrix wiki page. Although, I do generally update the EMR and EHR vendors page for those vendors that advertise on EMR and HIPAA.

Coming in close behind my list of EMR and EHR vendors was a couple posts about the EMR stimulus package (imagine that). One was called, “Details of Obama’s EMR stimulus Package” that I posted on 1/24/09 and the other was titled,”Economic Stimulus Bill Simplified” that I posted February 17, 2009.

I kind of shudder going back and reading those initial posts. So much of the information was vague and we were doing our best to guess what the government process would produce. Needless to say, we know a lot more about it now then we did then. I’m also glad I updated those posts with a link to my EMR Stimulus presentation. It’s mostly right, but we just have a lot more information now about Meaningful Use and Certified EHR than we had when I gave that presentation. The sad part of course, is that we’re still missing a lot of necessary details.

Another one that’s pretty interesting was a post I did back on June 21, 2006 about HIPAA Violation Examples. Turns out, a lot of people search the web for examples of HIPAA violations. I guess it’s kind of like passing a car wreck. You just need to look. This post is also proof that at least at some point, I’ve written about HIPAA. Thus the name EMR and HIPAA. Ok, I admit it’s probably about 99.6% EMR posts and 0.4% HIPAA posts. When I started I thought HIPAA would be interesting. I was wrong (at least for a computer nerd like me).

Another popular post was one listing the Top 10 Open Source EMR projects. Make sure you read the comments. That’s where the real action happened in that post. I might have to contact Sam Bowen about the Open Source Medical Software’s move to get OpenEMR certified. I’m guessing they still want to, but are just waiting for HHS to get their ducks in a row first.

I still love open source. I’d love to hear more updates about these open source EMR projects. So, if you’re someone who uses or codes for these open source EMR projects, I’d love to get an update (hopefully one I can share on the site).

Ok, that’s enough for now. Let me know if you like these type posts or not. I bet they’ll get better as I go down the list even more.

A lot of people have been asking me lately how long I’ve been blogging about EMR. It’s kind of hard for me to believe that I’ve been blogging about EMR for about 4.5 years. What’s even more crazy is that this is my 902 blog post on my EMR and HIPAA & EMR and EHR blogs. Not too bad for what started out as a Christmas break project.

What’s disappointing about all of these blog posts is that most people that visit the site only see the most current blog posts. Certainly some of the older blog posts aren’t worth reading (ie. some of my initial stimulus money posts). However, many others are just as relevant today as they were 4 years ago (don’t ask me if this is a good or a bad thing).

So, I think every week or so I’m going to do a blog post linking back to some of my old posts that people probably haven’t read before. Plus, I’ll look at some of the previous posts and do updates to those posts to highlight any new information we have on those subjects.

However, since this is my first look back post, I thought I’d highlight some unique ways to read content on my site.

EMR Tags:
Tags are a really cool way to read and find content about a specific topic. I try my best to be good about tagging posts appropriately. For example, here’s a list of links that include posts I’ve done and tagged with a certain keyword:
Meaningful Use
Certified EHR
EMR Stimulus
EMR Selection
EMR Implementation
You’ll find more links like this at the bottom of every post I do.

EMR and HIPAA Search:
There are 3 ways to search through all my posts on the site.
EMR and HIPAA Search – This is the built in search function that comes with the site.
EMR and HIPAA Google Search – This is the embedded Google search feature that will actually search across both EMR and HIPAA & EMR and EHR.
EMR and HIPAA Archive – This is a list of all the EMR posts I’ve done along with links to the posts By Subject and By Month.

Last time I took a second to recognize the advertisers on EMR and HIPAA I was just starting my planning for HIMSS 10. Now, HIMSS 10 isn’t much more than a spec in the rear view mirror. It’s amazing how time flies. Well, at this point I’m even more grateful for the companies that support this website as advertisers since I’m now a full time entrepreneur. Luckily, I think that the advertisers are happy with their investment in this site as well.

On that note, here’s a quick look at some new companies that have started supporting EMR and HIPAA since my previous post.

Practice Fusion – I must admit that I was really happy when i got the email from the people at Practice Fusion saying they wanted to advertise on EMR and HIPAA. I’ve said previously, that I think they’re the closest company to a pure internet startup company that I’ve seen in the EMR world. As a nerd, internet startups fascinate me. Mostly, I was glad to see that a company that understands Web 2.0 finds value on advertising on my site.

My personal musings aside, Practice Fusion was the first company I found that offered a free EMR. I’ve often written lengthy posts about their Free EMR model and SaaS EMR in general. You’ll find few companies more passionate about SaaS EHR. They also offer an interesting “Live in Five” program which commits to having you signed up and charting in Practice Fusion in 5 minutes. Once I have 5 minutes of free time, I’m planning to take that challenge and see what happens.

Digi Recs – Digi Recs (officially Digital Records, Inc.) is the first document imaging company to join as an advertiser. They’re a relatively new entrant to healthcare document imaging, but have a long history of document imaging with Fortune 500 corporations, small/ medium/ large size healthcare practices, hospitals and government agencies.

Digi Recs is happy to work with those that are pre-EMR with ongoing scanning or post EMR implementation scanning all your old paper records. I did this in our clinic and I can’t imagine anyone who tries to scan the old paper charts by themselves. A scanning service like this is so smooth and frees up all that paper chart space. Digi Recs is also interested in working with EMR companies who want to offer these scanning services.

EMR Jobs Promotion – I also am running a short promotion this week for EMR jobs. This week they’re offering 50% off a 1 year subscription job post plan with the promo code SAVE50.

I also want to thank those advertisers that have recently renewed their advertisement on EMR and HIPAA: Sfax, Sequelmed, The Drug Company, and MxSecure.

As a side note, the ad in the 7th slot down in the sidebar will be available for new advertisers on 5/1/10. You can see all the details about advertising on EMR and HIPAA here.

I’m also interested in looking at other opportunities to present on the EMR stimulus, EMR Selection or EMR implementation similar to this presentation I did in Austin on the EMR stimulus. Drop me a note on my Contact Us page if you’re interested.

A lot of people have been asking me lately about the readership of EMR and HIPAA. In a few months, I’d like to do a full survey to get some feedback from the readers of EMR and HIPAA. Until then, I thought I’d just do a quick poll to get an idea of who reads EMR and HIPAA:

Thanks for voting. Hopefully this will also help me to tailor the content towards the topics readers would like me to cover.

It’s been a little while since I thanked the companies that sponsor EMR and HIPAA. Please check out the various vendors that support the writing I do on this site. Plus, check the bottom of this post for some other methods of advertising an EMR, an IT company, and EMR consultants.

First up is a quick look at some of the new EMR and HIPAA sponsors:

• Ambir – I’m really excited to have Ambir as a sponsor on EMR and HIPAA. They’re the first device company to appear on our site. Ambir is an industry leader in digital imaging. Those who have an EMR know how important finding the right scanner equipment is to your office. I know I’ve burned through a few scanners that couldn’t handle the load. Check out Ambir’s recently announced scanner product.
• MD-IT – I first became familiar with MD-IT when I learned about a Medical Transcription Service Consortium for Sharing Patient Data. It’s initiatives like this that really make MD-IT an interesting company. I won’t be surprised at all if a transcription company like MD-IT really makes a dent in health information exchange.
• Sfax – Secure electronic faxing. HIPAA audit trails. Store and find faxes. Save time and money. Electronic faxing is really an essential part of any EMR implementation. Plus, it can be implemented before even selecting an EMR.
• TBD Consulting – A full-service consulting firm that specializes in employee performance improvement. In healthcare, they focus on Clinical Transformation and Healthcare Talent Management. They’re also doing some interesting things with Second Life and they’re also pretty avid bloggers.

I’m also always grateful for those sponsors who keep renewing with me. Medscribbler, InterSystems have both been sponsoring EMR and HIPAA for a while and it’s much appreciated.

I’m also working on some less expensive sponsorship options starting first with my EMR and EHR Vendors List for a premium listing on that page. I’ll be redesigning that page soon to accommodate it. Plus, I’ll be adding 2 new pages that will list IT Support Companies who specialize in EMR and also an EMR Consultants List. I expect it will be only $50-100 per Year to advertise on those pages. Please drop me a note if you’re interested in these new premium listings.

Otherwise, adverting on EMR and EHR has been going very well also. Plus, plans for HIMSS are starting to take shape. The first company to sponsor my coverage of HIMSS is on board and I’ve got 4 different companies interested in sponsoring a blogger/twitter meetup at HIMSS. So, if you’re going to HIMSS let me know in the comments and I’ll let you know when and where the meetup will take place.

Finally, the EMR job board has been doing Great! A job listing on the site goes for only $30 and it’s gotten 184 views already (or $0.16 per view). I haven’t seen any other healthcare IT or EMR job boards that do that well.

Ok, so much for a short post about my sponsors. I guess there’s just a lot going on. Plus, I haven’t even mentioned a future EMR selection e-Book and EMR conference I’m putting together.

As I mentioned in my post discussing the last year on EMR and HIPAA, I thought it worth talking about some of our plans for the coming year. 2010 is going to be an absolute banner year for EMR. We’re going to see the beginning of major shifts in the EMR world. Everything from merging EMR companies to clinics fretting over the EMR stimulus money. It’s going to be a very exciting and interesting time for those interested in EMR.

EMR and HIPAA Blogging – We’ll continue blogging, although maybe not as much as we did last year. However, it’s just part of my routine so I’ll be surprised if too much changes in that regard. I’ve NEVER had an issue with things to blog about. In 2010 I think sifting through all the content and news will be the real challenge. At the end of the day, my goal with blogging is to provide value to readers. Hopefully I can achieve that goal in 2010.

EMR and EHR Blog – Many of you know that I’ve been doing quite a bit of blogging on EMR and EHR. I expect the blogging on that site will increase in 2010. There won’t be too much difference between EMR and HIPAA and EMR and EHR, but EMR and EHR will generally focus on more news items. Also, I’m considering launching another EMR site that just does EMR news. We’ll see how that evolves.

EMR – EHR Conference – I’m working together with a partner to hold an EMR and EHR conference. I’ll be helping to put together the agenda for the conference which will likely be held around September 2010. The focus of the conference will be on providing practical information on selecting and implementing an EMR.

EMR Selection Book – I’ve made really good progress on my EMR selection e-Book. I expect to launch it to the world in early 2010. Then, I’ll start working on an EMR implementation e-Book along with other related e-Books. Hopefully I can add some value to those searching for the right EMR. Not to mention improve EMR implementation success rates. In some respects, I think these books as a cliff notes version of this blog. Other people have called it an “EMR for Dummies” type book.

Attending HIMSS 10 – I’ll be attending the HIMSS annual conference for the first time. If you can’t attend, then we’ll be covering it for you. I’m still deciding the best way to cover the conference. If you have suggestions or ideas, feel free to leave them in the comments. I was told we’ll have a Meet the Bloggers session at the conference also. I’m excited to meet readers of the site and also to talk with potential advertisers. I’m also interested in talking with someone who wants to sponsor all the posts I do at HIMSS. If you’re interested in more details, drop me a note.

I’m sure there’s a lot more, but that’s some of the major things. I’m also working on a side project which deals with online fundraising for organizations. I’d be interested in talking with non-profit hospitals to learn more about what they’re doing to fundraise. If you have a few moments to talk, let me know on my contact us page.

P.S. If you’re looking for my thoughts on the ONC “meaningful use” final rule, it will come in the next couple days. I like to give myself a few days to synthesize the information. It’s 76 pages (or something like that) for goodness sake.