Saturday, May 07, 2011
Electronic Medical Records
The buzz about electronic medical records may have calmed down, but the push to implement has not. Consequently, EMRs have fallen in to about three broad categories, which we will discuss, in brief, here today.
The first, and the one that a lot of us based our future and our fortunes on, was the self-contained version installed at each hospital. While this promised to be a big profit maker for many people, it was not except in the larger hospitals for the larger companies who could afford to put out a lot of “up front” money. The problem with this scenario is the hospital and the company involved must commit to long-term relationships. These systems are not “plug and play” sometimes taking years to implement.
Which brings us to the second model – the “build your own” system. The Cleveland Clinic is one such hospital that went this route (http://huffpostfund.org/stories/2009/12/can-cleveland-clinic-be-model-digital-medicine). Over a period of ten years, at a cost of nearly $100 million, the Cleveland Clinic did not see any cost savings by going with an EMR system. What they did see was a quantum leap in the quality of healthcare. C. Martin Harris, a physician who has overseen the digital transition at the hospital, has been quoted as saying, “Buying a computer is not going to suddenly cause your operating cost to drop." However, building your own system does give you incredible control over what you end up with in the end.
Finally, there is the “new” model that a lot of us felt was going to be the way to go for smaller clinics and “one doc” shops – the subscription service. Companies like Dell are getting into the subscription service platform in a big way. The benefit to the clinic is the freedom from the technical background that goes with any automation system. The provider takes care of all the backups, the patches, the security, the personnel. It is perhaps “cloud” computing as it was meant to be. A system that provides good service and helps the health care professionals deliver the best quality health care.
The bottom line is that automation in health care does not save money; it costs money. But, it does provide a big boost in productivity and quality of health care. That will make the extra cost worth the price. We need to look at other innovative ideas to bring down the cost of health care.
