Considerations in Implementation of Electronic Health Records
If you are a physician, hospital chief information officer (CIO) or other healthcare provider who is overwhelmed by the thought of converting your practice from being paper-based to Electronic Health Records (EHR) or deploying EHR into your hospital clinical area, you are not alone. We are experienced lawyers who can provide you with models of successful implementation programs, guidance as to potential pitfalls to avoid and available incentives for you to consider as a broad outline in setting a course matched to the unique circumstances of your own practice areas.
The US Government has become serious about the adoption of EHR, in essence offering to provide every physician an outright $44,000 incentive to defray the costs of adopting EHR. There is a stick however behind this carrot in that eligible physicians who are not using an EHR by 2015 will be subject to penalties in the form of reduction of Medicare payments.
Our view of EHR implementation is that there is no one size, technology or system that meets the requirements of every practice and EHR solutions that may meet today’s needs will not necessarily meet the “meaningful use” requirements of your practice tomorrow as “meaningful use “ continues to evolve. A pediatric practice needs an EHR system that includes growth charts and immunization records, but such features are irrelevant for podiatry, dental, mental health. oncology, obstetrical and most other practice specialties. The EHR you adopt should match your unique practice and workflow. The wrong EHR can just as easily lower workflow efficiency, increase exposure to record theft and create other new risks of practicing medicine. It is estimated that more than 20% of EHR systems installed today do not meet the full expectations of those who deployed them. But it will come to no surprise that EHR vendors are most reluctant to take back a EHR system they may have installed for your practice that turns out not to meet its needs.
To paraphrase Arthur Gasch, Principal of the EHR website (www.EHRselector.com), which can be an important guide in the EHR implementation process, EHR can be compared to the stethoscope. When first invented, the stethoscope was a departure from the medical status quo. Similar to the stethoscope today, EHR will also become an essential tool and the symbol of medicine practiced in the 21st Century. We will look back on the pre-EHR era and wonder how medicine was practiced without this powerful decision support tool.
In summary, as part of your advisory team, LeClairRyan is extremely qualified to assist you in preparing and negotiating your purchase and service contracts and financing agreements to seek to avoid these pitfalls, bringing to your attention incentive and financing opportunities to consider and providing flexibility for your EHR system to evolve and be upgraded to seek to match the ongoing improvements to the practice of medicine.
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