By now, your Electronic Medical Record (EMR) should be changing out of necessity, and fast, to keep up with requirements.
In Health & Human Services, we can agree that software vendors are responsible to offer functionality and services that meet demands of major payors like Medicaid and Medicare, which change continuously. What about meeting “meaningful use” of the expensive software you own or are about to purchase? It seems commonly accepted that providers need to take responsibility to assure successful software implementation and its evolution for their agency.
For decades vendors have heard from users that the software they purchased doesn’t do what the users want. In many cases the software contains functionality to meet the need as expressed in an RFP, but fails in the trenches due to a configuration that doesn’t meet workflow requirements of the customer. Arguments over who’s responsible to fix problems can drag on for years.
There are likely as many ways to resolve EMR optimization problems as there are agency and software product combinations. The solution takes time, expertise, and some money.
The best place to start is when you purchase your system, and consultant Rich Temple has some good advice in his recent article “Vendor Viability Assessment – Financial/Strategic“. If you have a system that provides the essence of your enterprise system needs, and you wish to extend its value to your organization, it takes specialized work dealing with your vendor, your executives, supervisors and users to glue the project together. Mr Temple talks about the “seismic changes” in our industry, and what that points out to me is a lot of work most agencies are not staffed to carry out.
EMR optimization takes not only a specialized tool set, but also time that your staff probably can’t spare and complete their day job…the one you hired them to do. This is a new “hole” in the market where people like Terry McLeod come in.
That would be a shameless pitch for your host and his peers…I’m here to help.
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