For those of you that were expecting a meaningful use monday post, I’m sorry. Don’t worry though, Lynn will be back with another Meaningful Use Monday post next week. It is Labor Day after all. Although, I saw a great tweet or Facebook status that said, “Why in America do we take the day off on Labor day?” I love plays on words. They also asked why we put a tree in our house for Christmas and not Arbor day.

I must admit that Labor day has become pretty inconsequential for me. Football has already started. My son’s been in school for a week already. Blogging for myself, it’s not like I really get a day off. Plus, we don’t live close to family, so there aren’t even any big family parties.

With that said, I am glad to have the summer behind us. Maybe that’s a function of living in Las Vegas. I’m beginning to understand why retired people come to Vegas in winter and head to cooler areas for summer. Maybe one day I’ll achieve that dream. Although, I also must admit that there’s something comforting about getting back into the routine of school and other activities. Maybe this is a function of younger kids being home all summer.

I must admit that this Labor Day my thoughts have been with many of those who are without jobs. It’s a crazy economic and political environment that we’re in now. I’m afraid we’re looking at a slow recovery and so we’re going to be in the current situation for a while to come.

My one consolation is that there are now 10 writers on the HealthcareScene.com blog network. That’s pretty good considering a year and a half ago when I quit my day job it was just me. I hope I can continue to grow the network and provide even more people income writing about EMR and Health IT. I’m lucky to be associated with such amazing writers. If you don’t know what I mean, go check out some of the other HealthcareScene.com blogs.

Now, time for a little family time. I hear making a fort with my kids is on the agenda today. I love being a kid again.

Time for my roundup of interesting topics seen throughout the interwebs and related to EHR and healthcare IT.

@Allscripts
Astounding growth in use of EHRs – 5x in 2.5 yrs – Dr. Mostashari at #ACE2011 (via Skype) – does your doc use an EHR?

I’d like to see where Dr. Mostashari got those numbers. I think there’s little doubt that EHR use is up. If we say that 2.5 years ago it was at about 15%, then that would mean that using his growth number we’re now at 75%. That seems way too high for me.

@shelleypetersen – Michelle Petersen
US are starting to standardise vendor requirements for #healthit and language used in #EHR regions, important move

Is this a misread of what’s being done with meaningful use and EHR certification? I haven’t seen standards really emerge for most of this. I guess it does say “starting.”

Hospital EMR User Tracking Bill
Don’t ask me why, but this post about a CA Bill Requiring Hospital EMR Software to Track Users came across my tweet stream as well even though it was posted back in June. I guess that’s one thing I love about Twitter. It can bring back interesting content that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

After reading the post, I wondered if the CA bill passed or not. I’m guessing not. Although, I’m still shocked by the article’s comments that even an expensive Epic install at Kaiser can’t meet the requirements of reporting on what data for a patient in an EHR has been deleted and who’s accessed that patient data.

MGMA Conference in Las Vegas
I’ll admit that I’ve wanted to go to the MGMA conference for a couple years now. This year I’m lucky that it’s hosted in the beautiful Las Vegas. So, I’ll definitely be there enjoying the event. I’ve been thinking about doing a New Media Meetup at MGMA like I do at HIMSS. Are any readers interested if I put it together? If there’s only a few of you, we could just do a dinner or something. Let me know in the comments or on my contact us page.

I know that sometimes people don’t like the analogy’s I make on this site. However, I just can’t help but make them. I find them instructive and there’s nothing wrong with people disagreeing with me. In fact, that’s often where I learn the most.

In the comments of a previous post, I was discussing some of the common issues with large EMR vendors (I like to call them Jabba the Hutt EMR vendors). Namely: backlog of training and setup, slow EMR support response times, HUGE up front costs for the EMR, etc etc etc. I’m sure that many of you are familiar with these subjects. For example, you pay a HUGE up front fee, get to wait 6 months to get trained on the EMR (EMR backlog?) and then once you implement your support calls take forever to get responses from the EMR vendor. Unfortunately, this is far too common.

What I don’t get is why people continue to go through this pain.

A few years back I was talking with someone about eating out at restaurants in Las Vegas. Someone was complaining about the wait times at a restaurant to get a table. Then, a long time Las Vegas resident commented that her husband and her NEVER wait for a table in Las Vegas. She then explained that there are SOOO many restaurants in Las Vegas, that if one has a wait they would just go to another one.

Obviously, the comparison to an EMR isn’t perfect, but the number of EMR choices is plentiful and you do have a choice to go with another solution. Sure, your EMR is an absolutely critical decision. You don’t want to make it lightly. However, that’s exactly why I don’t understand users that want to take a $50k-100k+ risk on an EMR software which can barely even support their implementation in the first place.

Is there EMR product really that much more compelling than the other 300+ EMR vendors?

There are plenty of low cost monthly alternatives that have exemplary support out there. The phrase “Buyer be ware” was never more true than with the purchase and selection of an EMR vendor. Don’t be swayed by great marketing and sales people. Take your time and find the right EMR and the right EMR vendor.

I’m really excited about a meaningful use and EHR conference that’s being held literally in my backyard. It’s the Inaugural Digital Medical Office of the Future: Driving Toward Meaningful Use Conference and Exhibition. The conference is scheduled for September 9-10, 2010 at Green Valley Ranch in Las Vegas, NV. You can see more details at the EHR conference website.

The whole conference seems really well done and should have a great mix of EHR, EMR, Meaningful Use and HIE topics. I’m personally most excited to hear the famous Mark Anderson from the AC Group speak in person. Our paths have crossed a number of times in the digital world, and so I’m excited to meet him in the physical world. I also noticed that David Kibbe is on the agenda. Both are legends in the EMR and EHR world which should make for an extraordinary time.

If any EMR and HIPAA readers plan to attend, it would be fun to meet you in person. Maybe we could do an EMR and HIPAA dinner or something. It’s always fun to meet readers of the site in person.

Full Disclosure: I’ve been given press access to the conference and exchanged the ad you see in the right sidebar for EMR and HIPAA listed in the conference materials.

I’m attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today. It’s one of the nice little advantages of living in Las Vegas. The first year I attended there wasn’t much healthcare presence at all. Each year it seems like there’s more and more. The largest healthcare vendors at CES are PHR vendors and medical device ones. Then of course we have the big booths like Microsoft and Intel. I’ll be interested to see how HIMSS 10 compares to CES. The pace of technology is amazing. For example, check out this picture of a video wall at the Intel booth that’s touch screen. It’s not hard to imagine one of these in a hospital or doctor’s office:

UPDATE: I found this video of the display that demonstrates what it can do even better.

As you know, I try to save my simpler posts for the weekend when less people are reading. Although, I do tend to ramble on occasion. Thankfully I type reasonably fast.

In some of my EMR readings of late I came across something that sounds similar to what I’ve talked about doing for EMR. They call it an EMR Buying Seminar. Sure, there have been a ton of EMR seminars lately. In fact, I did an EMR presentation in Austin myself. However, what struck me about this seminar is that it said it was the 10th annual EMR Buying Seminar. That’s a lot of years.

Of course, the thing I like least about this seminar is that it’s focused on hospital EMR systems. If you’ve read here much, you know I’m more of an ambulatory EMR kind of guy. Certainly there’s a lot of cross over, but the hospital stuff is far too political for my tastes.

I wonder how many people would be interested in an Ambulatory EMR Buying Seminar. Seems like it could be a really valuable thing including covering the details of the ARRA EMR stimulus package. I know the perfect place to hold it as well: Las Vegas. Let me know what you think of the idea.

Of course, an EMR Buying Seminar is a great thing for doctors and practice managers. My other idea I’m considering is holding an EMR conference of experts in EMR from the industry. Kind of a meeting with a wide open agenda and format where the participants are the presentation and become the conference. Basically, a bunch of really smart people getting together to discuss complex issues related to EMR. Could be a lot of fun.

How’s that for a short post that’s not so short?

For those who might have wondered I live in Las Vegas, NV. I must admit that despite living in Nevada I haven’t been that involved in the healthcare IT community before now. I guess I see this blog as more of a national and international thing and so I haven’t been as interested in what’s happening in Nevada. Plus, I didn’t really have the time to really spend their either other than the specific projects I was working on.

I’m not sure exactly why, but I recently got connected with the local Nevada chapter of HIMSS and actually went to a little lunch meeting with them. It was interesting to go and hear a local meeting from what I guess amounts to my neighbors doing a lot of the same things I’m doing. Granted, they had some misplaced views about EHR certification amongst other things, but that was really to be expected. However, over all I found a bunch of really smart people that were experiencing a lot of the same things I was experiencing.

In a kind of ironic way, I also got a call from a colleague of mine talking about the Southern Nevada Medical Industry Coalition (SNMIC) and more specifically their Electronic Health Records Initiative. Sounds like they’re working on some pretty interesting things for which I may be apart of helping to educate people on EHR.

I guess the point of this nice long rambling post on a Friday is to encourage readers of this blog to reach out to their local EHR community. It’s an interesting experience and worth spending a little time cultivating. Also, I’d be interested in meeting other people who work on EHR in Nevada. We can share our EHR “war stories” over lunch.