Healthcare IT Strategy

September 23, 2009

EHR: the cost savings can be tremendous

Filed under: change management,Interoperability,Work Flows — Paul Roemer @ 2:11 pm

shrekthefifth

I was at the beach with my family for the week.  There’s something magical about hanging out at the shore with three children ten and under.  There was so much sand in the house that we could have made a laudable entry in any sand castle contest.

For some reason, there is an unspoken understanding that Dad will unload the car, wash of the toys and hand the beach towels while everyone else showers.  By the time I reached the shower the hot water was long gone and enough grains of sand were embedded in the bar of soap that it felt like I was washing with pumice.  I toweled off from my shower with the only remaining dry towel, a pint-sized piece of linen bearing the likeness of Shrek–standing in your-all-in-all face-to-face with the green faced ogre sort of makes one a little less pompous.

My Shrek fan club was watching SpongeBob for the umpteenth time. I pretended to be interested and made the mistake of asking a question about the show. “I don’t get it,” I offered. “It seems like every show is about the same thing, it has something to do with SpongeBob making Krabby Patties for the Krusty Krab.” To which my youngest replied, “They keep making them until they get it right.”

No excuses. Do it until you get it right.  A single line job description for EHR?  I hope not.  There’s not enough money to do it until you get it right.  There is however, plenty of money to do it right the first time.  I call that the DIRT-FIT principle.  That’s where the saving are.

I’d better go; my kids are eating all of my Twizzlers.

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Should EHR vendors certify their system for Meaningful Use?

Filed under: Certification,meaningful use — Paul Roemer @ 1:02 pm

question3Sort’a implies it’s time to put up or shut up. Tell your vendor to tie that to the contract.

However, then the onus falls back on the provider. If the software is only 80% of the work, the provider better have one PMO killer team standing by who knows change management, work flow improvement, training, user acceptance. Oh, I let’s not forget that both parties are aiming for a moving target.

The good news. I think Meaningful Use will die off as a requirement before we get to 2012.

The tag line. If you buy something that can’t pass Meaningful Use, there’s nobody to blame but the face in the mirror.

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