I have talked with many physicians and practice managers in small and midsized practices across specialties about their thoughts and concerns on the path to EHR selection, implementation and meaningful use. Some of these conversations steer toward waiting to see what their affiliated hospital will do. While alignment with the affiliated hospital is certainly an important aspect of the EHR for the medical practice, the ongoing concern must be continuous process improvement within the practice. Meaningful use can be part of the even bigger picture of your practice. This is not only a change from paper to electronic but also provides more sophisticated and timely information. The challenge many times is getting buy-in to the idea that everyone will be creating a new process and it does not happen overnight or even after a 3-day “go-live” with the EHR system. The bottom line is that if everyone in the medical practice buys-in to defining and developing the new process within the EHR, there can be real benefits to making this leap. If you have ongoing concerns about achieving meaningful use within the practice, here is an interesting article on the concerns that CIO’s of the hospitals have in this process:
Survey: 80% of CIO’s concerned about meeting Meaningful Use standards in time
