The question was raised on the blog Software Advice.

I think the very question reinforces the magnitude of the issue. Providers have budgets for products whose cost they do not understand. They have implementation teams who have never implemented one. They are aiming at targets for certification and meaningful use, which from my perspective could just as well be written on an Etch-A-Sketch. Hundreds of committees work towards standards, a requirement forced upon them by hundreds of vendor applications and hundreds of Rhios.

The output of the recent HIT policy meeting shows just how befuddled the process is.

This is a mandated national roll out of EHR without half the required sources and almost none of the required leadership. Who is the decider?

The current failure rate for EHRs is understated due to the large number of small systems. The failure rate for those over $10 million will exceed the rate for large IT systems which is close to 80%.

A hospital CEO with who I met last month told me his peers are uniquely ill equipped to make these decisions. Decisions are based on what their friends did, what they read in a journal. They plan implementations based on meeting gossamer standards and tests. They do not base them on requirements.

Watch the dates move backwards. I think in 6-8 years the rolled out EHR will more closely resemble a single, national, browser-based open EHR.

This problem is not unsolvable, however it remains unsolved.