I’m excited to welcome a new advertiser to the EMR and HIPAA family and suggest some options for advertising on EMR and HIPAA. As you can imagine with the increase in interest in EMR, more and more people have been reading this website which is extremely gratifying to me. Not only are the conversations in the comments enhanced, but it’s nice to be able to share my viewpoints and experience with more people.

So, I’d like to welcome our latest advertiser:
NextGen EMR – They are a quite large EMR vendor and a major player in the EMR world. I’m glad to have them on board. They are doing a EHR and Practice Management live demonstration on 10/20. Check here for more details.

One of my other advertisers also asked me to put together a list of possible advertising opportunities that I had available for them in the coming year. I thought that others might be interested in some of the ideas I sent them:
-Advertising on EMR and HIPAA – Check out all the details of advertising on EMR and HIPAA.
-Advertising on EMR and EHR – This is a relatively new site I’ve started which currently tries to highlight some of the various EMR and EHR related news items along with covering things that I don’t have time to cover on EMR and HIPAA. The ads work the same on this site as EMR and HIPAA, but at a much reduced rate.
-Advertising on my EMR and Healthcare IT focused twitter account – This Twitter account has 2400+ followers and will likely have about 3000 followers by the end of the year and is a highly focused group of people interested in EMR and healthcare IT. This advertising could be in the form of the background of my twitter profile page or through a number of tweets advertising your company over a certain period. I would plan on disclosing that it was an ad using something like a “#sponsor” tag (or something similar).
-HIMSS Conference Coverage Sponsorship – I’m planning to attend this year’s HIMSS annual conference and blog extensively about it. This will likely include video interviews of those I meet at the conference. The idea would be to have a few companies sponsor all of my posts from that conference. So, at the end of each post I would write, this post brought to you by “insert company name”. Something to that effect.
-Advertising on the EMR, EHR and HIPAA wiki – This is a rather new website that’s just starting to grow, but has provided some pretty good click throughs for EMR and HIPAA.
-EMR Related Book Sponsorship – This is still in the process of being created, but my plan is to create a number of e-Books and likely all together a physical book related to EMR selection and implementation. I’d consider having a section for sponsors of the book.
-EMR Conference – This is still in development as well, but I’m considering the possibilities of hosting an EMR conference in Las Vegas and sponsors would help keep the costs low.

I’d love to hear feedback on these various options. Let me know if you have any other questions or need more information on our Contact Us page.

Selection of EHR software has definitely slowed. I predicted EHR adoption would slow back in February and I’ve definitely seen the selection process slowing. One of the main reasons people are waiting to adopt is they want to know what’s going to be defined as a “certified EHR” and “meaningful use.”

In order to combat this slow down in EHR purchases, we knew it was only a matter of time until EHR vendors started promising to support whatever is required to become a “certified EHR.” The first one I found with an EHR guarantee was NextGen. Here’s a summary of their commitment:

• A solution that will always evolve to meet the standards and certifications for federal stimulus reimbursement programs of interest to physicians using NextGen Healthcare products.
• A solution that uses open standards and enables generally seamless communication across the healthcare community.
• A fully-functional solution, and swift and professional implementation.
• Top quality training and support.

This is a really smart business move. They’ve got to do something to keep making sales. However, I’m a little concerned by anyone who selects an EHR based on this commitment. I must admit that I don’t see any reason why NextGen won’t do everything in its power to become a certified EHR. It would be detrimental to their sales staff if they don’t. However, don’t be surprised if a lot of doctors don’t get swallowed up in the wake of misunderstanding.

To illustrate what I mean, take a look through the above commitments and tell me one of them that can be easily defined and measured. Whenever there’s ambiguity involved, the lawyers in the room start to salivate. However, how many doctors offices are really going to spend the time and money involved in enforcing this guarantee? Very few if any. They’ll spend as much on lawyers as they will on recovered damages.

Sadly, the above seems like a better mission or vision for an EHR company than it sounds as a guarantee. If any EHR company really meant this stuff, they wouldn’t need to make a guarantee. All people would need to do is talk to previous customers and the writing would be all over the wall.

Moral of the Story: Select an EHR because it’s the right software for you as a clinic. Don’t base EHR selection on EHR stimulus money or some guarantee.

I recently posted about CCHIT joining Twitter. Seems like a decent number of EMR and HIPAA readers are also on Twitter, because I’ve been getting a pretty good number of new followers in the HIT and EMR field.

As my 1423 followers and 2302 updates prove, I like Twitter a lot and really enjoy the way it can help people to connect (I’m techguy if you want to follow me). It’s really quite amazing how 140 characters could turn out to be so valuable and to a wide variety of markets too.

What was really interesting is I recently saw 2 EMR companies join the Twitter revolution: eMDs and NextGen. I think that it’s really smart for an EMR company to join the conversation. At least if it’s done right. So far they only have 8 tweets and 41 tweets respectively. It will be interesting to see how these 2 EMR vendors use twitter over time.

I tweeted one of these companies the following tweet, “How do you plan on using Twitter? Do you have a plan or are you just testing the waters?”

Their response was, “We’re just getting started, but hope to expand communication w/ customers & others in the industry & connect w/ the EHR community”

One thing is certain, we’re just seeing the beginning of what’s possible with Twitter. It’s going to be really fun to see what creative people are able to do with twitter and healthcare.

If you know of other EHR vendors or other important HIT people on twitter, please let me know in the comments.

As most people know, I’m always open to guest posts from everyone and anyone that can provide a thoughtful perspective on a subject.  In the following guest post, Charlie Jarvis, AVP at NextGen, shares some of his thoughts on the HITECH act’s impacts.  I don’t necessarily agree with everything in this guest post, but I do believe that Charlie’s description of the “ambivalent” EMR buyer seems to be pretty accurate.  This will be a major challenge we need to overcome.  I’m hoping to follow up this post with an interview of Charlie.

Thanks Charlie!

As the national debate over the economic recovery plan and specifically the entire stimulus package continues, the HITECH sections of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) may be “relatively” less controversial to the American public than other sections of this law But HITECH may wind up being just as important as other more visible pieces of this law-and central to the discussion around health care reform. HITECH will drive EMR adoption as we all know. But what does this really mean, beyond the sheer massive amounts of money being thrown at this effort?

I contend that HITECH is going to “stimulate” the following actions in our health care sector, beyond the obvious ones of job creation and expanded health care automation:

• the evolution of coordinated care (among independent doctors), around the individual patient- a concept known as patient –centered care
• a focus on true quality of care outcomes, and the necessary paradigm shift in physician behavior to a focus on the health care outcomes of patients rather than simply the results of individual treatments or procedures
• the necessity of independent small (1-5) physician practices to either consider joining with their hospital, creating larger independent groups, or affiliating with an IPA or other such organization that can support their technology needs going forward; their ability to remain independent will suffer dramatically (an after many economic activities in the past have failed to unite doctors, this one appears to be able to have that effect)

All of these actions are going to challenge the medical practitioner to adopt a new view of their practice and indeed of medicine in general. And all of us who support physicians are likewise challenged with the responsibility to support physicians through this potentially overwhelming process. Our job is to focus not on independent opportunity for success in this new model but rather to understand and accept our role in helping reform care achieve its intended goal- the improved health care service to the patient, at a price they or their insurance carrier can afford.

While there is a great deal of excitement among many with the availability of incredible amounts of money to support HIT adoption, we must remember that a large portion of the medical community is viewing this “technology explosion” as something being forced upon them rather than an action that they enthusiastically embrace. And in an environment where the right EHR product is not always obvious (the government’s definition of certified HIT products and issuance of a certified HIT product list is not ready yet although everything points to CCHIT remaining their certifying body), we have a potentially disenchanted and ambivalent “buyer”.

And this purchasing “ambivalence” does not even begin to address the concern most doctors have over the fact that how they will be judged as caregivers in the future, will be largely dependent on reports of data which they will be required to capture and report. (And finally, if that is not enough, their ability to automate successfully will be published on the government’s health website for all the population to see.)

This may be an exciting and tremendously opportunistic time for America to reform its health care system- but the automation plan is going to have it’s challenges. We had better be up to it as a team!!

Charlie Jarvis
Assistant Vice President Health Services and Government Relations
NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, Inc.

I’m always happy to have people smarter than me do a guest post on EMR and HIPAA.  There’s far too much going on with Health Care IT for me to be able to cover everything that’s going on.  So, I’d like to thank Randy Pickard for sending in the following guest post about the HITECH stimulus act.

There is almost a Kafkaesque quality to the likely short term impact of the stimulus package upon adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems. The passage of the stimulus package will probably serve as a speed bump to EHR adoption until the details of the act have been spelled out. Up until the passage of the stimulus package, adoption of EHR systems has been proceeding slowly but steadily. However, the vaguely defined promise of $17 billion in reimbursements for EHR if unknown criteria are met could result in gridlock among purchasers in the short term while they wait for finalization of the provisions of the stimulus package’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act).  

A quick glance at the income statements of four publicly traded vendors that receive a significant portion of their revenues from EHR systems provides an indication of steady revenue growth from EHR sales. Income has been increasing by 10% or more per year for these four vendors, Allscripts, Cerner Corp., Eclipse, and NextGen.  (Although the increases in income is not simply due to EHR related sales. Acquisitions of other vendors and sales of other software products has also contributed to the revenue totals).

It seems likely that the revenue for these firms from new EHR sales will be greatly reduced in the near term, as purchasers sit on their hands waiting for answers to questions about how they can obtain reimbursement for their EHR spending. The HITECH Act designated that reimbursement would only be provided if a certified EHR was implemented. However, the certification standard is to be developed by an office (ONCHIT) that has not been staffed yet, with a coordinator that has not been named yet by the Secretary of HHS, who has not been appointed yet. Further, the bill indicates that reimbursement will go to establishments that show “meaningful use” of health IT, an undefined description that will likely deter healthcare organizations from rushing to purchase an EHR system. Given that the details of the plan to stimulate the adoption of EHR’s are far from being flushed out, is it any wonder that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a mere 2.3 percent of the health IT funds would be distributed in fiscal years 2009 and 2010?

About the Author – Randy Pickard is Vice President of Product Innovation for User Centric, Inc. a user experience research firm. User Centric recently released EHR and PHR white papers: How to Select an Electronic Health Record System that Healthcare Professionals Can Use and Google Health vs. Microsoft HealthVault: Consumers Compare Online Personal Health Record (PHR) Applications

Thanks Randy! If you’re interested in doing a guest post, feel free to Contact EMR and HIPAA.