Does anyone remember how many of each type of animal God told Moses to put on the ark? Are you sure? For those who missed it, Noah built the Ark, Charlton Heston built the stone tablets.

One word can make the difference between right and wrong, especially if the question is big enough. Who is asking the questions that are shaping your firm’s EHR strategy? Are they asking the right ones?  What are the right questions?  If your the person responsible for the money that will be spent on EHR, any of these deserve an answer;

• If the ARRA money went away tomorrow, would we still be doing EHR?
• May I see a copy of our EHR plan?
• Who vetted the plan?
• If so, would we still be doing it the same way?
• Would we still have selected this vendor?
• Did we issue an RFP?
• How did we choose who received the RFP?
• What criteria did we use to select the vendor?
• Who in our shop had any experience writing an RFP of this nature?
• Who has ever evaluated an RFP like this?
• What commitments do we have from the vendor about meaningful use?
• What commitments do we have from the vendor if meaningful use changes?

These are very basic questions, but I bet if you ask them of your team, you will not be pleased with several of the answers.  If they can answer all of them to your satisfaction, they may proceed to step two.  If not, send them back for another try.