Best Practices in selecting EMR Software - November 11, 2009
Orlando Florida --- When you take on the onerous task of selecting the right EMR Software (aka EHR Software) for your clinic yourself, you may unknowingly do many little things that will surely lead to selection of EMR Software that is not right for you. They will result in costly and frustrating mistakes that can come as a surprise and hit you hard when you least expect them, says Brian McCarthy CEO of Sencilo HealthIT Solutions and well-known speaker of the subject of IT for Healthcare providers.
1. Not taking the staff into confidence before starting the EMR selection process. Your staff will be most impacted by the changes in your clinical environment. Hence it is imperative that you help remove the fear of the unknown from the mind of your staff by explaining how implementation of the selected EHR Software will make them more efficient and effective in their day to day operations.
2. Not drawing up the criteria for your decision making process that is objective with a measurable metric rather than basing it on gut feeling. Criteria should be appropriately grouped and weighted so that you can arrive at a weighted score for each EMR being evaluated. If you are evaluating three or four EMRs and do not have the criteria well defined, chances are huge that some irrelevant issues will cloud your vision and impact your decision making.
3. Not following through with the references or not doing a thorough job with the references. You may often believe that all references are going to speak highly about the EMR since they have been handpicked by the vendors. However, as we all know, physicians are a closely knit community and it is not difficult for you to validate or repudiate what the references told you about their experience with the EMR Software from companies like Allscripts and Vendors like Sencilo HealthIT Solutions.
4. Accepting at face value what EMR vendors tell you about all their EMR Software features and functionality. For example, we have found some of the key differentiators claimed by some vendors had actually been decommissioned because they did not work as intended and were back to the drawing board for a re-work.
5. Assuming that larger and well known EMR vendors will be technology-wise more advanced, and customer-support-wise friendlier to your individual needs and situation. This assumption could be quite misplaced because bigger is not always better as many of these vendors are too busy working on tying up bigger alliances with hospitals and IPAs trying to rope in hundreds of providers in one scoop. Thus, ramping up customer support for small practices almost always takes a back seat and therefore you may be left out in the cold when you need help right away. Larger vendors are less likely to hear you out in regards to your individual needs and even more importantly, make changes to the software to meet your genuine requirements.
6. Selecting a vendor who says that their EMR Software does not need much training and it is easy to pick up. If you and your staff do not get adequate training, you will not be able to utilize the software to its full extent. There are no plug and play systems that can be implemented in a few minutes, few days, or even few weeks. Negligible amount of training built as part of initial implementation proposal is nothing more than a contrived method to win your business.
7. Being too focused on price early-on in your search or believing that there really is such a thing as Free EMR Software rather than focusing first on what you need for optimizing your clinical processes and workflow. A lowest cost approach does not typically translate into saving a lot of money and a lower Total Cost of Ownership. Once you determine what you want and need, you may start drilling down into pricing the EMR Software alternatives you are considering. Don't get pushed into making a decision, be patient.
8. Selecting an EMR on the basis of current requirements alone and not considering your foreseeable or possible future needs. Growth is generally inevitable and you may take on new providers (multi-specialty?), offer new services, or use devices that need to interface with the EMR.
9. Believing that you or an appointed member of your practice has all the time, knowledge, and experience to handle almost a monumental responsibility for undertaking the research, screening, selection, negotiating, and implementation of the best suited EMR Software for your practice without guidance from an experienced EMR consultant. There are too many decisions to be made and if you stop and think about it, you may realize that you truly do not know all about the good, the bad and the ugly, about EMR selection, implementation, price negotiation, hardware selection and more. Engage with an EMR Consulting company to assist and work with you.
10. Not having a true picture of how the EMR will help create a true paperless office and what components will or will not be addressed by the vendor directly as part of implementation. You must ask the EMR vendor to adequately demonstrate that their EMR Software will in fact increase efficiency and translate into increased revenues.
11. Not taking enough time to discover and evaluate the initial and recurring costs of implementing EMR. This also includes understanding the technology underpinnings required to support the selected EMR. It would also greatly help if you define and require the line items expected on the proposal from every EMR vendor you are considering so that you can make the best apples to apples comparison between different EMR Software.
12. Not clearly understanding what the vendors always mean by that or this is included at no additional charge. A good example of this is not clearly defining what they mean by a bi-directional interface with labs. There are actually two costs involved in setting this up and usually EMR Vendors mean that their side of the cost is included and that they can accommodate the connection but, someone (you) will have to pay for the other side of the connection.
For more information please call (407) 265-6293 or visit us at: http://www.sencilo.com
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When it comes to your healthcare computing needs, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions's main objective is to provide a turnkey solution that can essentially sustain itself. When you choose Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you don't just gain a vendor who provides you with technology. You get a business partner who walks with you through every step of the process
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture: More than technology
With Sencilo HealthIT Solutions eHealthcare Architecture, you can leverage the same productivity tools and technology resources that have transformed business. And you get a full portfolio of services too. By working with Sencilo HealthIT Solutions, you can get:
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In addition to providing high-quality technology at a low cost, Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services can help you plan your healthcare computing from the ground up. By working with you from the initial construction phases, we can help you save time and moneyâ€â€Âand lead to a truly customized solution.
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions Professional Services offers complete services that include:
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About Us
Sencilo HealthIT Solutions is a Florida-based integrator specializing in EMR EHR Cost Cutting storage, security and managed services solutions. Sencilo delivers a comprehensive portfolio of products from best-of-breed hardware and software from multiple manufacturers including VMware, Dell Fujitsu Data Domain, EMC, Hitachi, Symantec, HDS, IBM, Commvault, Xiotech and HP. Its technical expertise is known throughout the storage and security industry. Clients include leading corporations, major financial institutions, top universities, government facilities, as well as small to medium size businesses. Sencilo's professional services include consulting, integration, project management, storage virtualization installation, maintenance and knowledge transfer.
Sencilo has offices throughout Florida including: Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Hialeah, St. Augustine, Gainesville, Ocala, Palm Coast, Clearwater, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Maitland and Cape Canaveral Green Simpana Offerings Projects: BC DR planning Replication De-Dup De-Dupe iSCSI SAN NAS VMware Security EMC NetApp HP IBM Quantum Compliance VTL Data Domain vs Gartner Magic Quadrant Quadrent LTO Backup Exc Pure Disk NetBackup Networker TSM Commvault BakBone D2D D2D2T compare cloud data deduplication thin provisioning DXi Global Compression DDX virtual tape library Data Reduction SEPATON FALCON compare Celerra CLARiiON Equallogic Sencilo HealthIT Solutions NS20 NS40 CX4 CX3-20 CX3-40 CX3-80 FAS2050 FAS3050 Xiotech Nexsan Avamar DLD3 1500 D3 Storwiz storage compression data Ocarina Networks A-SIS compare Sepaton infopro BlueArc OnStor Microsoft Unified Storage data protection StorageX Brocade FAQ SSD Solid state disk SANmelody FalconStor tier zero Xiotech ISE nx4 ax4 greenBytes ZFS Sun Top 10 ROBOBak managed services hosting cloud grid Datacore Compellent compellant equallogic lefthand networks don't buy storage stop buying storage itguardian cherub networks Arkeia Network Backup appliance Data Recovery Backup Health IT Healthcare IT Digital Hospital Allscripts Patient Data electronic health record P4P rules and the HITECH Act PayerView Rankings practice management tools $44,000 in Medicare or $66,000 in Medicaid from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act eClinicalWorks, Allscripts, NextGen, GE Centricity, and Meditech
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