I enjoyed all day at the EHR Summit that’s being held by HBMA in Phoenix. It’s been a really interesting event for me. I had some sound bites from the Ron Sterling keynote queued up, but it’s not connecting to Twitter. So, I’ll see if I can post those tomorrow. Today, I thought I’d post some of my other tweets from the other session. I think you’ll find them interesting, enlightening, thought provoking or some other adjective. I really look forward to the discussion on this post.

EMR software has many versions of the same data. #interesting #EHRSummit11 Think about an HIE as well. They have a version of the data too

HIE’s aren’t good at getting the receiving doctor the second version of a clinical document. #interesting #EHRSummit11

Think about the records retention issues when you switch EHR software companies. Good thought. #EHRSummit11

If you haven’t lost a client to a hospital this year….you will next year. #EHRSummit11 #HBMA

How many EHR companies are billing companies? They have 7 listed on screen. Do you know of others? #EHRSummit11
They have MED3000, Allscripts, Greenway, NextGen, Athena, GE Centricity, Ingenix. Any other EHR companies do billing as well? #EHRSummit11

Shame on you if you hire an EHR Company and don’t check the references. Ask for a list of 10 in that specialty and size. #EHRSummit11

Pre-existing conditions, No lifetime maximum and kids on parents plan for longer are going to increase our insurance costs. #EHRSummit11

Definitely interesting to consider how the healthcare billing industry will be affected by things like ACO’s and concierge. #EHRSummit11

Super bills are going to go away once we get ICD-10. #EHRSummit11 #HBMA

The healthcare billing sales cycle is 12-18 months. #EHRSummit11

Since I’m putting some of my tweets. I also enjoyed a number of the tweets coming out of the ONC Meeting today. Here’s one that really hit me:

RT @INHSbeacon If you’ve seen one CCD, you’ve seen one CCD. Everyone interprets different, we need to find a standard to succeed #ONCMeeting

Today I’ve had the opportunity to come and check out the NextGen user group meeting. It was conveniently located in Las Vegas and the PR people at NextGen were generous enough to let me come by and get to learn more about NextGen from their actual users. I’ve gone to a lot of healthcare IT conferences (too many recently), but I love to be at user group meetings since you actually get to meet doctors, practice managers, etc that are working on EMR day in and day out. They provide a much different perspective than the health IT industry people that you often meet. Events like this give me a much better perspective of what’s happening in doctors’ offices with EMR.

NextGen announced 4200 in attendance at the user group meeting and I can attest that it’s a very large crowd. It’s quite interesting that the opening keynote was held in the same arena that Pacquiao vs Marquez was fought in a couple nights ago. Yep, that’s a pretty big crowd. Turns out, this big of crowd has its challenges. Not the least of which is having a bunch of the sessions that were completely full and didn’t allow people in. I heard at least one person tell me how frustrated they were that they’d spent a lot of money to attend and couldn’t go to the session they wanted. NextGen is working to offer a repeat of the session, so hopefully that will work out for people that are upset. A part of me wonders why they don’t record all the sessions, but when you read their social media policy for attendees (Something about not revealing NextGen’s proprietary info) you get a better idea of why they wouldn’t probably like that idea.

I could go on about the particulars of the conference, but so far it’s been a well organized and well attended event.

One quick thought I had during the Scott Decker keynote was about NextGen’s focus on SaaS based solutions. Here’s what I tweeted:

NextGen is using their SaaS EHR product with the RECs. Plus they see SaaS as the future. See also their Dell relationship. #NextGenUGM

November 14, 2011 9:19 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@techguy

John Lynn

Those are just a few examples, but it seemed very clear to me that NextGen sees SaaS as the future and they’re working hard to make that a reality. I’ll write about this in a future post when I talk about some of the things Scott Decker mentioned that can really only be done in the SaaS environment.

In some of my talks with NextGen users, I asked them about the theme of web based EHR software. One in particular has 30 Citrix servers serving all of their clients. You can imagine that they don’t have any plans to move to a web based environment in the near future with such a large investment in Citrix. So, it will be interesting to see how these two forces play out.

I also saw this tweet coming out of the conference which I found really interesting:

The clearest indication of a failed EMR is the persistence of a paper superbill. Truth straight from Dr. Allin at #NextGenUGM

November 14, 2011 2:37 pm via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@MicheleArnold

Michele Arnold

It’s an interesting way to look at EHR adoption. Little insights like this are a really great part of a conference like this. The nice thing is that with the power of Twitter, you can get a number of the insights from the user group yourself. Just follow the hashtag #NextGenUGM.

As any reader of this blog would know, there may be more EMR rankings out there than there are EMRs themselves. Of course, some lists are taken more seriously than others — KLAS comes to mind — but these days, with the money flowing, virtually everyone who can make a PDF is dipping an oar into the EMR ranking game.

The following list, from a a site called Business-Software.com, is particularly cute in that it would appear to be entirely bought and paid for by vendors — there’s nary a critical analysis to be found in the paper.  (Most of the lists I’ve seen at least pretend to be neutral.)

That being said, I still thought it might stimulate conversation among us to share the list.  I’d love to hear whether you think Business-Software.com has provided any value here, and whether you’ve had particularly good (or bad) experiences with listed EMR sellers.

Here’s Business-Software.com’s list, seemingly in no particular order. Where available there’s a link to get a demo/price quote from the vendors on the list courtesy of Medical Software Advice.

* AdvancedMD: Provides Web-based practice management, medical billing and scheduling software as well as an EMR. Includes a patient portal, e-prescribing and mobile access option.

*  Allscripts: Offers EHRs, practice management, revenue cycle management, document management, e-prescribing. Focuses on emergency department and care management systems for hospitals.

* Greenway: Offers EHR, integrated with practice management system, along with a database integrating clinical, financial and administrative data.

* Sage: Products include practice management, EHR, document and image management and point-of-care documentation.

* Aprima: Company offers EHR, practice management and revenue cycle management products, all aimed at medical practices.

* Kareo: Focuses on small medical practices. Key products include Web-based EHR, medical billing and practice management offerings.

* Abraxas Medical Solutions: Sells unified EMR and practice management solution. Product is powered by a single Microsoft-SQL database.

* Celerity Solutions Group: Provides EHR conversion and systems integration solutions to both large and small medical practices.

* NextGen Healthcare: Offers a very wide range of products, including EHRs for physicians, hospitals, health centers and healthcare providers, as well as practice management and financial management systems, HIE and patient portal options.

* meridianEMR: EMR focused specifically on urology specialists, as well as a product aimed at general surgery.

What bothers me about this list, by the by, is that while it’s almost certainly a series of advertisements, that’s not marked anywhere.

While physicians aren’t dummies by any means, my guess is that some might get sucked in by any list that says “top” in it if they’re feeling desperate enough.  Here’s hoping physicians catch on to the bias here.

This is a SHOUT OUT to all doctors who use EMRs. Which EMRs do you use and how do you like them. Do you love them or hate them? Are you luke warm in your like or dislike? Tell us which EMR you have and how you feel about it. Also tell us what you would do (the mistakes and the good moves) if you were looking into getting an EMR at this time.

I have personally looked at Greenway PrimeSuite, SOAPware, SRSsoft, e-MDs, AmazingCharts, NextGen, Centricity and others.

Can you comment on the cost and the usability?. Let’s share information so we can help other doctors choose systems that are usable, simple to learn, effective and efficient.

If you don’t have an EMR and are looking into one, what questions would you have for those “who have gone before you”? What advice would you be interested in receiving?