Rating Your Own EMR

Some people have asked me how I rate the EMR I work with every day. I can’t bring myself to do it. It’s unfair to me and the people I work with. It’s not that I don’t have strong feelings about my EMR. I really do. I know the pros and cons, the ins the outs, and everything in between. However, it’s just hard rating my EMR and hopefully I can help you understand why.

My job is to implement this EMR the best way possible. That’s what I do. It doesn’t matter if it’s good bad or ugly. It’s counter productive for me to rate how good my EMR is. It is what it is. I haven’t been assigned the task of selecting an EMR. I’m not paid right now to see what other EMR vendors might be better than the one I have. I’m paid to do my very best at implementing the EMR that was chosen.

I don’t want to sound harsh here, but I think that many of the EMR failures are due to people worrying too much about what other EMR software can do and not enough about what their EMR software can do. The question shouldn’t ever be, can our EMR software do this? Instead you should ask, “how can we do this with the EMR software we’ve chosen?” This is two very different perspectives that reap very different results.

I’m not talking about someone who is in the process of selecting an EMR. I’m talking about someone who has already selected an EMR. It reminds me about one of my favorite quotes about marriage that says, “When you’re dating keep both eyes wide open, when you get married keep them closed.” You could just as easily say, “When selecting an EMR keep both eyes wide open, but once you’ve chosen an EMR keep both eyes closed and make the most of it.”

Of course, one thing I can’t help doing is answering people’s questions about EMR. I’ve had dozens of people call me about my EMR and I just love talking to them about the benefits, challenges and hassles of my EMR.