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Set-up for Success: Selecting the Right EMR System for Your Practice
With so many EMR vendor options on the market, choosing the right EMR system to meet your practice needs has become a daunting task. Every system looks and feels a little different. With so many choices, it's easy to get caught in a maze of information. Nevertheless, choosing an EMR vendor is one of the most important decisions you will make in your conversion to a non-paper based practice. Knowing which questions to ask is the key to selecting the most appropriate EMR vendor for your practice.
Here are some basic questions you should ask of an EMR vendor under consideration:
- Is the company CCHIT certified?
- How viable is the company financially?
- How specific to your needs is the vendor?
- What maintenance and support services does the vendor offer?
It is also important to take into account what may happen down the road when selecting an EMR vendor. Failure rates of EMR implementations are consistently high, at over 50%. Why do they fail? The most common causes include lack of support, lack of resources, lack of user involvement and unrealistic expectations. In short: poor technical preparation and a lack of staff understanding and enthusiasm are responsible for the overwhelming majority of implementation failures.
Staff involvement and opinions are also essential in vendor selections. Issues specific to a practice's needs should involve representatives from all areas of your practice. For example, something that is intuitive for a physician might not make sense to the nursing staff and vice versa. Analyzing the existing operational workflow with representatives from different components of your team will help you better select an EMR specific to your practice's needs. It will also allow you to provide details about your practice to vendors in advance of visits to your practice, so they can provide customized demonstrations that address your practice's specific concerns.
Other important considerations when selecting an EMR vendor include:
- How many live sites does a vendor have for a practice size similar to yours?
- Is the solution a remote (ASP) or onsite data storage model?
- What service level agreements do you have in place for system downtime?
- What are the onetime costs?
- What are the recurring costs?
Taking the time to do the research and get the facts on as many vendors as possible will facilitate a smoother transition, and incorporating your staff's opinions from the beginning will help to keep them engaged and excited about the change. Gather team members and make lists of everyone's desired features and concerns. Schedule site visits to observe implemented practices for real world views. Find out what your affiliated hospital is using or recommends. All of these activities will help to determine what system will work best for your individual practice needs.
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