EMR

Microsoft EMR: It’s Not Just a Matter of When, It’s a Matter of Who

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This guest post ties nicely to some of what I have been writing about regarding why I think firms like Apple, Microsoft, and Google will be the real N-HIN, why PHRs will become EMRs on super smart next gen devices.

Its author is Austin Merritt of softwareadvice.com, a web site that provides advice on selecting EHR software.  I think the strategic reason for Microsoft’s entry into EMR would not be because there are big bucks to be made from a limited number of physicians but because it gives them a foothold into two of the key stakeholders; doctors and patients, one via an EMR and the other through its PHR.  If that is where they intend to stop, they’ve wasted everyone’s time.  I think they have bigger plans, and those plans include having patients walk in to the doctor’s office, both having the same EMR on the same or compatible devices.  The rest of this post is Austin’s.

Microsoft Dynamics is largely present in just about every software market but medical. And they’re missing out big time. The United States healthcare IT market is growing at about 13% per year and is expected to reach $35 billion in 20111. The biggest opportunity for growth in the industry is among ambulatory care physician practices, partly due to the Stimulus Bill requiring the use of electronic health records (EHR) systems by 2015.

You would think Microsoft would be in such a promising industry, but you won’t find a Microsoft EHR available. The primary reason why is that EHRs are highly specialized, and Microsoft’s main products (Dynamics, CRM, and SharePoint) don’t come anywhere near the needs of physician practices. It would be very difficult for Microsoft to build an EHR from scratch and introduce it to the market. So what should Microsoft do to enter the industry? Acquire a current player.

Such an entry into the medical market would mimic the acquisition spree that Microsoft conducted between 2000 and 2002, when it acquired Great Plains, Navision, Damgaard, and several related vendors. These systems were re-branded and offered as Microsoft Dynamics. Before these acquisitions, Microsoft was not present in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) application market. Its only ERP presence was as an infrastructure vendor, licensing SQL Server databases and related platforms to support application rollouts. However, this lack of application presence gave competitors such as Oracle and SAP the opportunity to squeeze Microsoft out of the ERP infrastructure market by pushing Unix, Oracle databases and IBM DB2. By acquiring several applications, Microsoft was able to drive sales of its SQL Server and Windows Servers directly, in addition to the Dynamics applications themselves. This strategy proved effective in giving Microsoft a multi-billion dollar share of the lucrative ERP market.

Setting its sights on the medical market, Microsoft is starting to squeeze its way in with a few smaller acquisitions and developments of its own, mainly Amalga and HealthVault. However, these current medical offerings are on the periphery of the market and do not really target the sweet spot: electronic health records for physician practices. An intelligent acquisition of a large EHR player would provide a key piece of the puzzle for Microsoft’s entry into the medical market.

Acquired by Microsoft in 2006, Amalga provides information connectivity and interoperability to large healthcare networks. It is the primary Microsoft healthcare offering in the industry at this point, although it is not available in the United States. Microsoft may be planning to offer it domestically, as it did with Navision Damgaard, or may be looking to acquire a domestic vendor to complement it. Regardless of Microsoft’s strategy, Amalga still would not address the physician practice EHR market.

On the other end of the spectrum, HealthVault is a patient-managed, centralized health records solution. It is essentially designed to be a reference point for consumers, not a substitute for medical records. If Microsoft were able to introduce an EHR to the market and enable its users to make records accessible to patients, labs, specialists and pharmacies via HealthVault, then they would really be on to something. This synergy with its other products would just be an added bonus to having its own EHR.

So what would Microsoft prioritize as its key acquisition criteria when evaluating EHR targets? They would certainly want target vendors who possess the following:

  1. Large market share and name brand recognition. Microsoft usually likes to be the largest name in the business, so they would definitely want to sell a “big-name” system with which most buyers are already familiar.
  2. A scalable product for small and large practices. Microsoft would need to be able to cover a wide range of medical customers. While its bread and butter is always in the small and mid-size market, they would want scalability into the largest organizations.
  3. A .Net architecture to drag along infrastructure sales. Reinforcing the position of .Net in the medical software marketplace would be important because it would drive further sales of Microsoft infrastructure while squeezing out Unix, Oracle and IBM.
  4. An established, indirect sales channel. Microsoft historically favors selling through partners, including the existing Dynamics dealer network. An EHR vendor with a large dealer network would provide Microsoft an easily transferable sales channel and process.

So which EHR vendor should Microsoft acquire? This is where it starts to get interesting. We decided to examine Microsoft’s ten most logical targets in detail. Two very popular products, GE Healthcare’s Centricity and McKesson’s Practice Partner, did not make the top ten list. While these systems meet many criteria, the parent companies – General Electric and McKesson – are not really acquirable by Microsoft. The remaining ten are outlined below.

MARKET SHARE SCALABLE PRODUCT .NET ARCHITECTURE INDIRECT CHANNEL
NextGen
Greenway
Pulse
Aprima
Allscripts/Misys
eClinicalWorks
Eclipsys
athenaHealth
Epic
Cerner
  • NextGen – One of the “biggest names” in EHRs, NextGen focuses on medium to large enterprises. However, its system is certainly able to scale down to smaller practices. While it is often too expensive for groups with less than ten physicians, it has a strong position in the sweet spot of the market. Its .Net-based system is sold both directly and through a channel network, so NextGen is a good fit for Microsoft.
  • GreenWay – GreenWay has a nice product, but is toward the smaller end of the companies on this list. It sells primarily directly and has some channel partners. PrimeSuite 2008, its EHR and practice management sytem, is .Net-based and is popular among small and mid-sized groups. Microsoft could leverage its resources and Greenway’s technology to become a major force in the industry. Moreover, Greenway doesn’t come with any legacy of old architecture or acquired customers.
  • Pulse – Pulse has quickly climbed its way into the ranks of bigger EHR vendors and will likely stay here for some time. They were one of the first vendors to achieve 2011 CCHIT certification and are receiving a lot of buzz as a result. While the system is scalable and .Net based, Microsoft would likely want to pursue bigger fish for now.
  • Aprima – Aprima (formerly known as iMedica) has focused on its .Net framework and N-tier architecture from the beginning. As a result, its modern platform and interface make it widely received among physicians across a broad range of specialties. While Microsoft would likely focus on larger companies first, Aprima could be a nice additional partner to champion .Net.
  • AllScripts/Misys – A large brand and a publicly-traded company, it is a logical first place to look. After all, the company claims to have 160,000 physicians using its products. However, the 2008 merger between AllScripts and Misys presents the usual integration challenge, which might keep this firm busy for quite a while. Although we think the future of AllScripts/Misys is very promising, Microsoft probably wouldn’t get involved at this point.
  • eClinicalWorks – This system is probably the most ubiquitous of the list, especially among smaller practices. The recent deal to sell eClinicalWorks through WalMart will definitely increase its brand recognition and share of the market. However, the system is built in Java, an open programming language that is the traditional enterprise alternative to Microsoft .Net. Microsoft would most likely rather acquire a pure .Net system or one that is at least close to it, especially with Oracle, IBM and SAP all embracing Java.
  • Eclipsys – Eclipsys acquired MediNotes in 2009 in an attempt to move users to its Peak Practice EHR. While Eclipsys is fairly popular among hospitals, Peak Practice has not achieved similar success among small to mid-size outpatient practices. Existing MediNotes users are not thrilled about being forced to purchase Peak Practice and we’ve seen quite a few seeking a new solution from a new vendor. We think the success of the MediNotes deal is unclear and Microsoft would steer clear for now.
  • Athena – The youngest company on this list, Athena’s product offering is slightly different from the others. Its system is offered via software as a service (SaaS) and is combined with outsourced billing and revenue cycle management services. This offering is indeed unique, but not a suitable target for Microsoft due to its SaaS offering and labor-intensive service component.
  • Epic – This company possesses an interesting niche in the market. It has only 190 clients, but 150,000 physicians using its products. This is due to its focus on only the largest healthcare organizations in the United States. While this focus is great for Epic, it wouldn’t be effective for Microsoft. Epic will never be able to achieve the ubiquity in the small to mid-sized market where Microsoft dominates. It also sells direct, contrary to Microsoft’s traditional indirect sales mode.
  • Cerner – Cerner’s cash cow is Millenium, a product designed primarily for hospitals. PowerWorks, its outpatient EHR, does not possess the market share among physician practices that Millenium enjoys among hospitals. While Cerner is a recognized name, few practices consider PowerWorks. It is also an older system. Cerner would need to improve its PowerWorks offering before becoming a suitable target for Microsoft.

Although NextGen is not currently dominant amongst small practices, Microsoft could bring them downmarket. NextGen is unable to serve these smaller buyers for two reasons: 1) small practices cannot afford an enterprise expenditure; and, 2) NextGen does not want to (and maybe cannot) devote resources to chasing smaller deals. If Microsoft owned NextGen, they could double down on pursuing smaller practices, perhaps through their channel partners. They may even lower prices to buy market share and make up the difference with revenue from services, SQL licenses, and maintenance.

Which EHR do you think Microsoft should acquire?

Paul M. Roemer
Chief Imaginist, Healthcare IT Strategy

1475 Luna Drive, Downingtown, PA 19335
+1 (484) 885-6942

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What if our EMRs were portable?

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I am wondering how much of the cost of a hospital’s EHR system includes building in the functionality of individuals’ EMRs and making them transportable.

What if EMR’s were made portable and they could be carried around by patients on super smart devices?

Any thoughts?

saint       Paul M. Roemer
       Chief Imaginist, Healthcare IT Strategy
      
       1475 Luna Drive, Downingtown, PA 19335
       +1 (484) 885-6942
       paulroemer@healthcareitstrategy.com 

My profiles: LinkedInWordPressTwitterMeetupBlog RSS
Contact me: Google Talk/paulroemer Skype/paulroemer Google Wave/paulroemer

The change keeps changing

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Hello to those whom I’ve yet to meet.  This is rather long, so you may wish to grab a sandwich.

I write to share a few thoughts.  I reside in the small place where those who refuse to drink the Kool Aid reside. For those who haven’t been there, it’s where those who place principle over fees dare to tread.

Where to begin? How to build your provider executive team? (Those who wish to throw cabbages should move closer to their laptops so as not to be denied a decent launching point.)

I comment on behalf of those in the majority who have either not started or hopefully have not reached the EHR points of no return—those are points at which you realize that without a major infusion of dollars and additional time your project will not succeed. Those who have completed their implementation, I dare say for many no amount of team building will help. Without being intentionally Clintonian—well, maybe a little—I guess it depends on what your definition of completed is.

If I were staffing a healthcare organization, to be of the most value to the hospital, I’d staff to overcome whatever is lying in wait on the horizon, external influences—the implications of reform and Stages 2 and 3 of Meaningful Use, and a national roll out of EHR with no viable plan to get there.  Staffing only to execute today’s perceived demands will get people shot and will fail to meet the needs of hospital. To succeed we need to exercise an understanding of what is about to happen to healthcare and to build a staff to meet those implications.

Several CEOs have shared that they are at a total loss when it comes to understanding the healthcare implications of reform and IT.  They’ve also indicated—don’t yell at me for this—they don’t think their IT executives understand the business issues surrounding EHR and reform.  I somewhat disagree with that perspective.

Here’s a simplified version of the targets I think most of today’s hospital CIOs are trying to hit.

1. Certification
2. Meaningful use
3. Interoperability—perhaps
4. Budget
5. Timing
6. Vendor management
7. Training
8. User acceptance
9. Change management
10. Work flow improvement
11. Managing upwards

There are plenty of facts that could allow one to conclude that these targets have a Gossamer quality to them.  Here’s what I think. You don’t have to accept this, and you can argue this from a technology viewpoint—and you will win the argument. I recently started to raise the following ideas, and they seem to be finding purchase—I like that word, and since this is my piece, I used it.

Before we go there, may I share my reasoning? From a business perspective, many would say the business of healthcare must move from a 0.2 to a 2.0 business model. (This is not the same as the healthcare business—the clinical side.)  The carrot?  The ARRA incentives—an amount that for many providers will prove to be more of a rounding error than a substantive rebate.

Large healthcare providers are being asked to hit complex, undefined, and moving targets, and they are planning on adapting to reform and reforming their own business model while they implement systems which will change how everyone works.  Hospitals are making eight and nine figure purchase decisions based in part on solving business problems they have not articulated. If success is measured as being on-time, in-budget, and fully functional and accepted, for any project in excess of $10,000,000, the chances of failure are far greater than the chances of success.

Their overriding business driver seems to be that the government told them to do this. Providers are making purchasing decisions without defining their requirements. Some will spend more on an EHR system than they would to build a new hospital wing.  Many don’t know what the EHR should cost, yet they have a budget. Many don’t know if they need a blue one or a green one, if it comes in a box, or if they need to water it.

So, where would I staff to help ensure my success—this is sort of like Dr. Seuss’, “If I ran the Circus”—the one with Sneelock in the old vacant lot.  I’d staff with a heavy emphasis on the following subject matter experts:

• PMO
• Planning & Innovation
• Flexibility
• Change Management
• PR & Marketing

Contrary to popular belief, not all of these high-level people need to have great understanding of healthcare or IT. You probably already have enough medical and IT expertise to last a lifetime.

Here’s why I think this is important. Here’s what I believe will happen. Three to five years for now the government would like us to believe there will be a network of articulated EHRs with different standards, comprised of hundreds of vendor products, connected to hundred of RHIOs, and mapped to a N-HIN.  Under the proposed model, standardization will not occur if only for the fact that there is no monetary value to those vendors whose standards are not standard.

Interoperability, cost, and the lack of standardization will force a different solution—one which is portable.  I think the solution will have to be something along the lines of a single, national, open, browser-based EHR.  It will be driven by consumers.  Consumers will purchase the next generation of super-smart portable devices that offer a combination of iPad/iPhone functionality.

The Personal Health (PRH) will have evolved to become the EMR.  How is this possible?  What do smart devices do?  They do one thing, billions of times each day, and they do it perfectly—they send and receive ones and zeros.  That is what today’s EMR are—ones and zeroes.  Those next-gen devices will be EMR-capable.  Why?  Because there are more than a hundred million customers who will keep buying these devices.

The so-called N-HIN will be the new Super Internet—not some cobbled together network of RHIOs.

Firms like Apple, Google, and Microsoft will drive this change.  We already buy everything they offer, in fact, we line up at midnight to do so.  By then, those firms will care less about selling the devices than they will about transporting the ones and zeroes that comprise the data.  Their current PHRs are their way of introducing themselves to consumers as players in healthcare.

The point I am trying to drive home is that from being able to adapt to change and reform, lean towards staffing the unknown.  Staff with leaders, innovators, and people who can turn on a dime. Build your organization like turning on a dime is your number one requirement. Don’t waste time and money worrying about Certification or Meaningful Use. If anyone asks you why, you can blame me.

If you want a real reason, I have two. First, they won’t mean a thing five years from now. Second, if I am the person writing an incentive check, I want to know one and only one thing—will your system connect with the other system for which I am also writing a check?  That is the government’s home run.

saint Paul M. Roemer
Chief Imaginist, Healthcare IT Strategy

1475 Luna Drive, Downingtown, PA 19335
+1 (484) 885-6942
paulroemer@healthcareitstrategy.com

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Contact me: Google Talk/paulroemer Skype/paulroemer Google Wave/paulroemer

The User’s Role in EHR–a PowerPoint presentation

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This link will take you to a slideshare,net presentation that defines how healthcare providers can take control of the EHR project.  I welcome your comments.

http://www.slideshare.net/paulroemer/the-users-role-in-ehr

saint Paul M. Roemer
Chief Imaginist, Healthcare IT Strategy

1475 Luna Drive, Downingtown, PA 19335
+1 (484) 885-6942
paulroemer@healthcareitstrategy.com

My profiles: LinkedInWordPressTwitterMeetupBlog RSS
Contact me: Google Talk/paulroemer Skype/paulroemer Google Wave/paulroemer

A guest post–An EMR that increases productivity

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The following is a guest blog by James T. Loynes, MD.  During a recent call he told me about an EMR he wrote for his oncology practice.  My initial thought was, “Just what we need, another EMR.”  The more I listened, the more I thought he had something different, something that actually was built towards an eye for best practices.  I asked him if he would tell you about it.  The rest of this is his.

The Path to Excellence Is Under Construction

James T. Loynes, MD

No really, I am not crazy.  I just want to do things better.  That’s the reason I built my own EMR.  I worked with an excellent group of programmers to design my Hematology-Oncology EMR piece by piece over a period of three years.   I fixed every design flaw and mistake.  Problem by problem I made it right.

It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t quick.  I examined how I care for patients.  I evaluated how paper and information flowed through my office.  I met with nurses, secretaries and transcriptionists to determine how we could do things better.  I knew that technology could be a powerful tool to improve patient care.

Even as a medical student, I never understood why it was so hard to find patient information.  Charts could be lost or misplaced.  Medication lists were always a moving target.   Why couldn’t we use technology to make things easier and more efficient?  I was annoyed that I had to dictate the exact same information visit after visit.  I was consistently slowed down because I had to find and repeat documentation.

I listened to stories from patients about other physicians who spent entire visits looking at the computer screen because that is what their EMR demanded.  I saw EMR generated notes that had so much information that it was difficult to read.  I made it a point to avoid these pitfalls.

I needed my EMR to make me better, smarter, and faster.   Since there was not an oncology EMR available that filled my needs, I built my own.  I started by designing a web based program that helped me with my chemo orders.  I designed it to fit my (physician) needs.  I wanted to be more efficient.  I wanted to take better care of patients.  I wanted to be able to find information when I need it.

I like paper!  I know this is EMR blasphemy, so don’t tell anyone.  I can write on it, put it in my pocket, or give it to someone.  It is easy to read and anyone can use it!  You know what else I can do with paper?  I can throw it away or recycle it.  While I like paper, I don’t like to file or find it.  As we all know, maintaining a paper chart demands a huge amount of work.  A tremendous amount of time is spent finding, carrying, copying, thinning, and building a paper chart.  I decided that I need paper, but I wanted my EMR to get rid of the paper chart by electronically putting paper where I can find it on demand.

My EMR is web based.  I can access it with any computer that has internet access.  The system can support one physician or fifty. I have hundreds of templates that I can easily edit.  I have order templates, note templates, chemo templates, and nursing templates.  The system automatically fills in designated portions of the physician notes.  The EMR remembers information from previous notes and places in a manner that allows me to dictate new information only.  Dictation time and expenses are dramatically reduced.  Treatment calendars accurately track chemotherapy dates and cycles.  The nurses can write phone notes, enter vitals, and document core nursing measures.  They can perform medication reconciliation and take verbal orders.   I can easily monitor my billing codes and keep track of information needed for the ASCO Quality Oncology Practice Initiative.  I can build treatment plans and treatment summaries.  The system monitors chart access.  Preliminary notes or chemotherapy orders prep the EMR for improved productivity.   Patient lists speed up chart access.  Medications lists and visit summaries can be printed on demand.

This EMR could be easily altered to accommodate different practice specialties.  What would happen if you had 30 physicians in the same community using this web based EMR?  Providers at a small practice have access to the same technology as the largest practice.  Instead of 30 different methods of documentation, each provider could use the same system.  There would be nothing to download and very little equipment would be needed.   Communication would improve exponentially.  The whole community would save on medical costs because there would be less duplication of efforts.  The work of others could be viewed by all.  In the end, everyone benefits, and patients receive better patient care through the use of technology.  Alright, maybe I am a little crazy, but sometimes that’s what it takes.

saint Paul M. Roemer
Chief Imaginist, Healthcare IT Strategy

1475 Luna Drive, Downingtown, PA 19335
+1 (484) 885-6942
paulroemer@healthcareitstrategy.com

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Contact me: Google Talk/paulroemer Skype/paulroemer Google Wave/paulroemer

How to improve EMR adoption-a guest blog

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The well-written guest blog which follows is by Richard Hom, Public Policy Consultant, Richard Hom Consulting.  http://grandrounds4ods.com.  You can also find him on Twitter at grandrounds4ods.  Thanks Richard for contributing.

Medical providers across the country are grappling with many medical care issues. Of the many, one that has received much attention, thought and talk has been computerized electronic medical records (EMR).  Although not a novel idea, EMR use and adoption have regained center stage as economic stimulus funding from the Federal Government has been dangled as an added incentive.

The monetary incentive, though, has not overcome the resistance and hesitation that providers have toward EMRs.  More urgent problems that preclude EMR adoption dwindling reimbursement, rising malpractice premiums and an array of private and public regulatory issues that smother provider authority.  In this atmosphere of medical practice the promise of the benefits of EMR adoption has not outweighed the attention gained by the aforementioned issues.

If EMR adoption is to spread and embraced by the medical community, more tangible and direct benefits may be needed. For example, with EMR use, physician accountability is enhanced by legible and available documentation of patient care. Tying EMR use to malpractice premiums would be an attractive carrot, just as a non-smoker might benefit with health or automobile insurance.

Likewise, EMR use should benefit a physician’s patients by easing information sharing.  Therefore, an initiative to lessen the burden of eligibility of benefits or referrals to specialists would be welcomed.

Finally, electronic presentation of Explanation of Medical Benefit forms (EOMBs), rejections and electronic resubmission should further invite greater EMR participation. In this one area alone, the blizzard of paper correspondence surrounding reimbursement is a significant problem area that may be lessened with EMRs and practice management software.

In summary, a cash incentive may attract medical providers, but only those providers who already may have successful office workflow processes and may require only a cash incentive. For the remaining, though, relief from the paper flow, claims submission,and  malpractice premiums may be the carrot that will move more providers to EMR adoption.

Should HIT make the Top 10 list for medical advances for 2009?

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Below is a reply I made to a report that HIT was one of the top medical advances for 2009.  It came from community.advanceweb.com.
Great point.  An advance requires movement.  I do not think an 8% penetration with a 60% failure rate and high churn is the type of movement that would qualify.  If anything, it appears more like a retreat or stagnation.
User acceptance is so low that the feds are offering $40 billion in incentives and penalties if that doesn’t work.
Acceptance will not be enhanced by the addition of regional extension centers (RECs); appointed committees with no more HIT expertise than the folks at K-Mart.
It will be hindered further  by similarly provisioned RHIOs building HIEs that are as different from one another as snowflakes, 400 vendors with no standards, and no incentives to create any.
Then there is the N-HIN, Meaningful Use, and Certification, all of which exacerbate the national roll out of EHR to the point where it the current plan will fail.
My take?  Meaningful Use and Certification will not exist in 3 years and firms like Apple, MS, and Google will be the N-HIN.

Why is EHR too much for normal brains?

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So, I’m watching the Alabama Auburn game and it suddenly strikes me, there are probably a lot of people trying to understand what it is a consultant does that we can’t do for ourselves.

For those who have a life, those who missed the game, Alabama entered the game undefeated and had a good chance to play for the national title.  Auburn opens the game with the best scripted opening plays I’ve ever witnessed—touchdown, onside kick, trick plays, touchdown.  14-0.

Their first however many offensive plays were brilliant.  They were planned perfectly.  The next time they had the ball it was apparent that they had not planned the however many and first play.  The plan failed to go beyond what they’d already accomplished.

How does that apply to what you do, what I do, and why I think I can help you?  It is best described by comparing your brain to a consultant’s brain.  Your work brain functions exactly as it should.  It’s comprised of little boxes of integrated work activities, one for admissions and registration, one for diagnosis, another for care.  There’s probably another box for whatever it is that the newsletter stated IT was doing three months ago and how that impacts what you do.  That’s your job.

Your boxes interface in some form or fashion with the boxes of the person next to you in the hospital’s basement cafeteria who is paying for her chicken, broccoli, and rice dish that reminds you of what you ate at crazy Uncle Bob’s wedding reception.  That interface is the glue that makes the hospital work.  It’s also the synapse, the connective tissue—I know it’s a weak metaphor, but it’s a holiday weekend—give me some slack—that tries to keep healthcare functioning in an 0.2 business model.

There are names for the connective tissue, you know it and I know it.  It’s called politics.  It’s derived from antiquated notions like, “this is how we’ve always done it”, “that’s radiology’s problem”, “nobody asked me”,

At some point over the next week or two the inevitable happens; the need arises for you to add some tidbit of information.  Do you add it to an existing box, put it in an empty box, or ignore it?  This is where you must separate the wheat from the albumen—just checking to see how closely you’re following.

Your personal warehouse of boxes looks like the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark—acre after acre of dusty, full boxes, no Dewy-decimal filing system, and no empty box.  There are two rules at the hospital; one, bits of information must go somewhere, and two, nobody can change rule one.

The difference, and it’s a big one, is that consultants have an empty box.  It’s our Al Gore lockbox.  We were born that way.  It’s like having a cleft chin.  We also have no connective tissue to your organization.  No groupthink.  No Stepford Wives. No Invasion of the Body Snatchers to turn us into mindless pods moments.  Consultants may be the only people who don’t care.  Let me rephrase that.  We don’t care about the politics.  We don’t care that the reason the hospital has four IT departments is because the hospital’s leadership was afraid to tell the siloed docs that they couldn’t buy or build whatever they wanted.

Sometimes it comes down to your WWOD (what would Oprah do) moment.  Not, what do they want me to do, not what would they do, not what is the least disruptive, not what goes best with what the other hospital did.

At some point it comes down to, what is the right thing to do; what should we do.

Big, hairy healthcare IT projects come out of the shoot looking like Auburn did against Alabama.  The first however many moves are scripted perfectly.  Heck, you can download them off Google.  Worse yet, you can get your EHR vendor to print them for you.

The wheat from the albumen moment comes when you have to come up with an answer to the question, “What do we do next?”

That’s why consultants have an open box.  You know what we are doing when our brain takes us to the open box?  Thinking.  No company politics to sidetrack us.  Everybody knows the expected answers, but often the expected answer is not the best answer.  Almost everybody knows what comes after A, B, C, and D.

Sometimes…E is not the right answer or the best answer.

The Dark Side versus the Blind Side

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My take on this is probably far-afield from the mainstream. I think the Dark-Side, firms like Google, Microsoft, and Oracle look at the confusion and lack of planning in terms of what the final EHR/PHR platform will look like and they simply drool. With hundreds of EHR vendors and RHIOs and RECs and standards groups all operating independently, all aiming at an undefined target, which group is best positioned to solve this platform problem, the Dark Side, or the Blind Side?

The Dark Side’s plans are underway and visible through their PHRs. Like the tip of an iceberg, I bet that most of what they are doing to own this space is presently unseen. Practice Fusion, if their product attracts enough customers will be devoured, or they will be ignored. RECs, RHIOs, Meaningful Use, Certification, a lack of standards, and no network are large red flags from the government saying “we don’t know where we’re going, but we’re making real good time.”

Here’s a reply I drafted at the request of Brian Ahier to his blog, http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/11/getting-personal-with-health-t.html

The Dark Side knows exactly where they’re going. They don’t need a network; they have one. The Internet. There are those who argue HIPAA and security. HIPAA and security can be more readily handled on a network that’s been up and running for twenty years and was built by the military than they would be under anything developed off the cuff under Washington’s leadership.

Now for the Deathstar issue–ownership of the data. The question is are ownership and possession one in the same? I bet they will not be. I’d also bet that five years from now somehow that Dark Side will have at least access to it. I can’t prove any of this, but I’d love to sit in on the strategic planning committees of the Dark Side. I bet some or all of this is underway. The Blind Side may be blind-sided.

HIT/EHR: A little adult supervision can’t hurt

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Among other things, EHR requires adult supervision like parenting.  My morning was moving along swimmingly.  Kids were almost out the door and I thought I’d get a batch of bread underway before heading out for my run.  I was at the step where you gradually add three cups of flour—I was in a hurry and dumped it all in at once.  This is when the eight-year-old hopped on the counter and turned on the mixer.  He didn’t just turn it on, he turned it ON—power level 10.

If you’ve ever been in a blizzard, you are probably familiar with the term whiteout.   On either side of the mixer sat two of my children, the dog was on the floor.  In an instant the three of them looked like they had been flocked—like the white stuff sprayed on Christmas trees—I guess we could call them evergreens—to make them look snow-covered.  (I just em-dashed and em-dash, wonder how the AP Style Book likes that.)  So, the point I was going for is that sometimes, adult supervision is required.

What exactly is Health IT, or HIT?  I may be easier asking what HIT isn’t.  One way to look at it is to consider the iPhone.  For the most part the iPhone is a phone, an email client, a camera, a web browser, and an MP3 player.  The other 85,000 things are other things that happen to interact with or reside on the device.

In order for us to implement correctly (it sounds better when you spilt the infinitive) HIT and EHR a little focus on blocking and tackling are in order.  Some write that EHR may be used to help with everything from preventing hip fractures to diagnosing the flu—you know what, so can doctor’s.  There are probably things EHR can be made to do, but that’s not what they were designed to do, not why you want one, and not why Washington wants you to want one.  No Meaningful Use bonus point will be awarded to providers who get ancillary benefits from their EHR especially if they don’t get it to do what it is supposed to do.

EHR, if done correctly, will be the most difficult, expensive, and far reaching project undertaken by a hospital.  It should prove to be at least as complicated as building a new hospital wing.  If it doesn’t, you’ve done something wrong.

EHR is not one of those efforts where one can apply tidbits of knowledge gleaned from bubblegum wrapper MBA advice like “Mongolian Horde Management” and “Everything I needed to know I learned playing dodge ball”.

There’s an expression in football that says when you pass the ball there are three possible outcomes and only one of them is good—a completion.  EHR sort of works the same, except the range of bad outcomes is much larger.