It seems like about every 6 months some new organization comes out with a new EMR buying guide. Physicians are looking for every way possible to narrow down the search amongst the 300+ EMR vendors.

Today David Swink sent me this new EMR Buyer’s Guide that InformationWeek is planning to put together. Unfortunately, they don’t really say how much they plan to charge for the EMR buyer’s guide or whether they’re going to get paid by the EMR vendors for the referral or what. We’ll see what they actually put together.

It’s just amazing the prices that many of these EMR buying guides charge for the information or even to be listed in the EMR buying guide. I’m not against people applying a business model to get paid for the work they do. It’s just that far too many of these guides charge a lot more than the value they actually provide to the user.

Plus, there are a number of free EMR selection services which I think do a better job than all of the EMR buyer’s guides I’ve seen. EMR Consultant and Medical Software Advice being 2 examples. They have a larger (often MUCH larger) database of EHR vendors to choose from, and they narrow that list down better than most of the EMR buying guides. Oh yes, did I say they’re FREE.

Just be careful what you buy. You don’t always get what you pay for.