You’ve implemented an electronic health system into your practice as mandated, but do you have the right one?  Are you happy with the system that you have installed or does it fall short in ways that frustrate you?

The biggest flaw that professionals complain about is that of interoperability (and after all, isn’t that why EHRs were instituted in the first place?)

Healthcare organizations and medical facilities will spend up to $70,000 per provider on EHRs, according to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.

Problems with a newly adopted system present a time drain with:

  • Workforce training
  • Trying to contact vendor
  • Down system
  • Attention to system vs. actual patient care

The thing is, with the huge expenditure and the above problems, there are actually few studies and verified statistics to show that the medical practices and health facilities using the systems are actually satisfied with the ones that they now have.

Healthcare IT News Survey

Healthcare IT News sent out a survey to physicians, professionals in medical IT, and healthcare providers using the systems within a variety of healthcare settings, i.e. clinics, private practice, hospitals. Of this list, 396 professionals submitted their views on the survey.

According to the results, Epic was rated the highest in each category ranked with 8.1/10 compared with the other top vendors and according to HIMSS Analytics, enjoys one out of every 5 systems that hospitals have implemented.

Second was eClinicalWorks as the most popular cloud-based system and both Cerner and Allscripts tied for third place.  Siemens garnered the lowest satisfaction rating.

Categories for these ratings included:

  • Interoperability (7.2 for Epic)
  • Ease of Navigation and Graphics
  • Vendor Support

Lesson

What can we learn from the survey results?

The first issue is interoperability. Perhaps the vendors feel that if this issue was corrected, there would be one universal system down the road and they would lose out in terms of revenue and brand or that there would be intellectual theft among vendor systems. For now, finger pointing is going to the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services as well as the ONC.  The bottom line however, is that there is little concern to the needs of the doctors and health facilities.

Another issue that must be addressed is the speed (or lack of it) in system usage and the workflow efficiency as well as vendor support.

The thing is, the system is in its infancy and as it evolves, hopefully issues will be solved and the systems will be ironed out.

Having a universal system wouldn’t be such a bad thing.  Then we would at least all be on the same page when it came to patient care!

Views

What are your thoughts?  Share your experiences and views in the comment box below.