Today, HHS announced two more organizations that have been approved as ONC-ATCB for EHR certification:
SLI Global Solutions – Denver CO
Date of authorization: December 10, 2010.
Scope of authorization: Complete EHR and EHR Modules.

ICSA Labs – Mechanicsburg PA
Date of authorization: December 10, 2010.
Scope of authorization: Complete EHR and EHR Modules.

I’ve actually met with both of these organization. I met with SLI Global Solutions in Denver when I was attending AAFP. I wrote this blog post about SLI Global Solutions as an ONC-ATCB EHR Certification body after my visit with them. I’ll be getting more information from them which I’ll post on this or EMR and HIPAA as I get it.

ICSA Labs is an Independent Division of Verizon Business. I met with the CMO of Verizon at last year’s HIMSS where he told me that ICSA labs would become a certifying body (sorry I can’t find the post right now).

Both are very legitimate organizations with some definite interest and expertise in the healthcare space. For example, Verizon is making a big play with their Verizon HIE product offering.

I’ll see about getting more details on each of these new EHR certifying bodies so that we can see how they compare against the other ONC-ATCB. 5 EHR Certifying bodies. That’s probably enough to keep it competitive.

It seems like everyone is trying to get in on the EMR selection game. At the end of the game, I think this is actually a really good thing. I’m all about lots of competition which drives people to provide better service and quality at a lower cost.

The latest entrant I’ve seen to this arena seems to be basically an EHR Selection Consultant group. It’s being run through the wholly-owned subsidiary of the American Academy of Family Physicians, TransforMED.

There are three consulting paths that they offer as follows:

EHR Prep-Select is a 10-step project that is further broken down into nearly 40 individual assignments. The program includes four hours of consulting with an experienced industry expert and provides access to a Web portal that contains electronic worksheets, templates, surveys and tables designed to streamline the process of capturing, analyzing and disseminating EHR project data between internal staff and EHR vendors.

EHR Prep-Select “Plus” provides additional consulting time to help supplement the internal resources required to complete a full EHR selection project, and the Prep-Select “Premier” offers consulting from start to finish.

No doubt there’s a need for doctors to have some help in selecting from the 300+ EMR vendors that exist out there. The problem today is that doctors need to hire a consultant to tell them which EMR consultants are good and which ones are smoke and mirrors. For example, I find the above program interesting, but I have no clue how good it really is.

If I were starting the EMR selection process today, I’d go and check out EMR Consultant first. Hard to get better than a free service.

Some of the best and most objective information about EMRs comes from the Center for Health IT at the American Academy of Family Practice. Real doctors who have purchased EMRs rate their EMR in 5 different categories: Quality, Value, Usability, Productivity and Support.

This report is ONLY available to members of the AAFP. I think if the AAFP really wanted to do all of us a big favor, they would release this report to anyone who is interested in seeing it. I don’t understand why they are keeping it secret.

It is going to be very difficult for doctors to find a good EMR because there are so many EMRs and so many “bad” EMRs (hard to use, reduce productivity, expensive). Starting with this survey can help doctors start their EMR search on the right foot.

Contact the AAFP and ask them if you can get a copy of their report.

Center for Health IT

Hopefully they will have our great Healthcare System’s best interest at heart. By making this report available to all doctors, they can help us all get “good” EMRs that are usable and high in quality.

If you are a doctor looking for an EMR, start your search with a few EMRs that get good ratings in this survey.