Do EHR vendors have a built-in bias?

Posted by Paul Roemer on June 26, 2009

I write from the perspective of hospitals and physicians who are required to pass tests of certifiable, meaningful use, and interoperability. As would be expected, comments made by EHR vendors are quite different from miine.   Forgive me for stating the obvious–their job is to get you to buy what their firm sells, to make you a believer.

There are more than four hundred firms who have something to sell you, something they believe will make your life better. How do you know which one of them is offering something that may work for you? How can you tell? Heck, how can you tell which product will still be viable in three years?

A question worth considering.  As passionate as the vdenors’ sales reps are, when a sales rep moves from Vendor A to Vendor B, does their passion remain with Vandor A?  Of course not.  The new “best thing since slided bread” is the thing offered by Vendor B.

Where does that leave you?  For starters, don’t buy it on faith.  Don’t buy it just because somebody else bought it–is their judgement better than yours?  You need a way to make an objective decision about some very subjective information.  One way to do that is to turn the subjective issues into quantifiable business requirements.

What do you think?

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• A thought about EHR companies
• How’s the EHR vendor performing?
• Should EHR vendors certify their system for Meaningful Use?

This entry was posted on June 26, 2009 at 11:16 am and is filed under Rants & Musings, Strategy, Vendors-What’s not to like?. Tagged: electronic health record, healthcare 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.