As most of you realize, HealthcareScene.com has grown tremendously over the last year. At the start of 2011 I think that there were 3 websites that were part of the Healthcare Scene network of EMR and Healthcare IT blogs. By HIMSS in March 2011, I’d grown the list of websites to 7. Today, I’m happy to say that there are 14 different websites and blogs that are part of the Healthcare Scene blog network.

As you can imagine, it is hard enough for one person to manage writing two blogs. It’s nearly impossible for one person to manage 14 websites. Luckily, I have a group of passionate writers that do a ton of amazing work across the network of EMR and HIT blogs. I imagine some of them don’t get nearly enough recognition for the great work they do. Each post says the name of the blogger at the top, but many people never take a look. This Christmas break I’ll see if I can finish a project I’ve wanted to do for a very long time and do a better job recognizing the various authors of each post better.

In the mean time, I decided that I’d mention each of my writers and recognize them for how great they are, cause they are indeed great. Now on to the writers (in no particular order):

Katherine Rourke – If you’re a reader of EMR and EHR (and you definitely should be), then you’ve no doubt have read some of Katherine Rourke’s posts on EMR and EHR. She’s done almost 100 posts on EMR and EHR and did a great job raising the level of content and readership of that site.

Lately she’s been spending most of her time writing for the relatively new Hospital EMR and EHR. She’s done a great job covering the Cerner and Epics of the hospital EMR world on that site. Also, if you’re more interested in some non health IT related healthcare blogging, you can find her writing at next Hospital.

Katherine is a passionate lover of healthcare and hospitals in particular (thus the move to the hospital site). She’s the only person I’ve ever met that gets excited to go to the hospital. Lucky for us, her passion throws through in her writing and she’s not one to mince words. She’s got a punchy style which I and many other readers really enjoy. As a trained journalist (unlike me), it has been great to work with her.

Side Note: Katherine Rourke is a penname. She wasn’t around when I was writing this so I could see if I could reveal her real name. I think she kind of likes the mystery and intrigue of being anonymous though.

Neil Versel – If you’ve been around the healthcare IT industry in any way at all, then I am certain you’ve read some of Neil Versel’s work. In the case of Healthcare Scene, Neil blogs on Meaningful Health IT News, but Neil has written for basically every major (and probably all of the minor) health IT publication that exists or has existed over the past 15 or so years. He’s one of the true professional health IT journalists.

On a more personal note, I stumbled upon Neil’s blog when I first started blogging. I remember reading Neil’s work in various publications and thinking to myself, “He’s a journalist. I’m not. What can I learn from what he does?” I know that much of my style and approach to writing came from the things I saw Neil do.

Dr. Michael West – I am always honored to have working physicians blogging on my network and Dr. West is one of the two doctors that participate in Healthcare Scene. Dr. West is an endocrinologist in private practice in Washington, DC and writes on the blog Happy EMR Doctor. Yeah, the name is a little cheesy, but it was the best we could find with all the domain squatters out there. Plus, he truly is a Happy EMR user.

Dr. West provides an interesting physician perspective since he implemented an EMR that was a complete failure. He replaced that EMR with a Free EMR solution. Plus, Dr. West chose to opt out of Medicare rather than to continue to experience all the Medicare cuts and penalties (particularly those related to meaningful use requirements). Obviously, all of these items make for some great content on his blog. I also love that he recently had his Practice Manager, Ken Harrington, hop on the blog and do a post about how EMR influences HR in a doctor’s office. I hope Ken writes for the blog more often.

Dr. Michael Koriwchak – The second doctor that writes of Healthcare Scene is Dr. Koriwchak. He’s an ENT out of Atlanta (there’s so much good health IT in Atlanta) that’s been working with health IT and EMR for a long time. You can read his blog at Wired EMR Practice. Lately he hasn’t had as much time to blog thanks to a number of other projects he’s working on including trips to Washington to talk about things like the HITECH act and ACOs. In fact, he just happened to be with Hermain Cain in DC for one of the famous Hermain Cain lines that was quoted over and over again on the news.

Regardless of how much time he has to blog, if you look through his past posts you can see that he provides a lot of interesting thought and insight from a physician perspective to the challenge of implementing and using an EMR system. One of the best series of posts he did was his Lessons Learned from an EMR Upgrade Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Dr. Koriwchak is definitely ahead of the curve.

David Lynn – Many of you might not recognize David’s name, but his the quiet voice behind 4 of the Healthcare Scene blogs. He manages and does all the hard work on EMR & Health IT News, EMR & EHR Screenshots, and EHR & EHR Videos. In the short time those sites have been up, David’s turned them into a really great resource for those researching EMR and EHR software or for those in the industry just trying to stay up on the latest and greatest EMR info.

You will find David’s more creative work on Smart Phone Healthcare. That website is focused on mobile health and I’m always amazed at the content, devices, apps and other technology that David is able to find and post about on that site. I’m also happy to call David my brother (or maybe I should say little brother). For the longest time we’d wanted to work on some project together. The opportunity presented itself for him to participate in the network and he’s done an amazing job, which isn’t surprising since he’s one of the smartest people I know.

Lynn Scheps – I think most of you reading this are familiar with Lynn. Lynn Scheps is Vice President, Government Affairs at EHR vendor SRSsoft, but she’s also the power behind Meaningful Use Monday. I have had a ton of people tell me how valuable Meaningful Use Monday has been for them and all credit should go to Lynn for putting in the time to share the knowledge with all of us.

I think when I first suggested the idea of blogging about meaningful use to Lynn she was a little reticent. However, I think she’s come to enjoy the experience of putting the ideas down in writing and also the value of getting feedback and commentary from users. On a more personal note, Lynn is a genuinely kind person and pleasant to be around.

Priya Ramachandran – I was really lucky to be introduced to Priya and have her start writing on both EMR and EHR & EMR Thoughts. Priya provides a really fresh perspective on the industry. Plus, she’s a computer nerd like me which is always great for bonding us together.

One thing I love about Priya is that she always has her ear to the ground to hear the latest things that are happening in the EMR and Health IT world. In fact, I don’t know how many times I’ve had an idea for a post based on some current HIT happenings and then I get a post from Priya about that same subject.

Jennifer Dennard – The addition of Jennifer Dennard writing on EMR and EHR is relatively new, but I had known Jennifer for quite a while before she started writing. I can’t quite remember how I convinced Jennifer to write for my sites, but it was one of the best choices I’ve made.

One of the things I like most about Jennifer’s posts is her ability to share something personal and then connect it to an EMR or healthcare IT story. Plus, as I finish reading her posts I often think, “Wow, that took me somewhere unexpected and interesting.” I attribute this ability to her superior mind and creative writing style. I’m always excited to see what twist and turn she’ll take me on next. At the recent AHIMA conference I had a chance to connect with Jenn on a more personal level as well. Not only is she a great writer, but she’s an incredibly thoughtful and caring person that everyone should want to be around. I’m lucky I’ve had that chance.

As you can see, I’m lucky to work with such amazing people both professionally and personally. This Holiday Season I want to send out a big Thank You to them. If you want to send them a gift as well, I imagine one of the best things you can do is to read their posts and leave a comment on the ones you find interesting. There’s not much nicer as a blogger than someone taking the time to read what you do and engage in a discussion around that comment.

Happy Holidays!

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.

Someone pointed me to a new website created by e-MDs called EHR discussions. The site says “Welcome to EHR Discussions, a moderated discussion forum that will feature discussions on health information technology.”

When someone suggested that it was a discussion forum about EHR that was hosted by an EMR company I was really interested. Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed by what I found. There was almost no discussion on the website and it was really hard to even figure out how someone could comment. Basically, it’s just a real simple blog implementation. They do allow comments, but they require you to register before you comment. If you’re trying to create discussions about EMR, then that’s the very worst thing you could do.

At the end of the day, it all goes back to expectations. I was hoping for a killer forum for people to really discuss important EMR topics. That’s what I was told it was and it says it’s going to be at the top of the website. When that expectation wasn’t met I was disappointed.

If e-MDs would have just said they started a blog about important EHR topics, I think I wouldn’t have been nearly as disappointed. They actually have created a good post about the HITECH act for example. Certainly it shows a lot of vendor bias perspective and doesn’t do any real hard core analysis, but for information purposes it’s interesting.

Just don’t expect this information intensive type of website to engender a lot of conversation around EMR. Do expect it to be a nice marketing tool for e-MDs. I’m a strong advocate for blogging by EMR companies that want to increase their presence online.