I would like to open by extending my gratitude to John Lynn for convincing me to blog about EMR’s and EHR’s. He is my partner in this endeavor, and I appreciate everything he’s done to get this wonderful blog up and running. If you want to see a truly robust blog about these issues, his is fabulous.
Right now, my desire for this blog is to bring you, my delightful readers, a view into EMR’s and EHR’s. I’ve been working in this industry for over a decade, across many disciplines (finance, clinical, IT, medical physics, treatment devices, ICU, honest brokering, billing, FQHC’s, inpatient, ambulatory, integration / HL7, data mining, research projects, scheduling, benefits, charge capture — yeah, all over the map), and have even had the honor to work overseas, in a post with the NHS of Scotland. I’ve seen, implemented, played with, tested, reported out of, billed from, and experienced many EHR’s and EMR’s out of the box and in the wild (very rarely are they tame). To boot, I still get geeked when I first look at a new data set.
I’m going to admit, I’m an opinionated person. I am sure at the end of each post you’ll have no doubt about where I stand (or no doubt that I’m not sure where to stand yet!), and I’m going to probably pontificate on crazy minutae. I’m hoping, however, that I will be informative and interesting (and yes, sometimes a little irreverant) to read, and that I will be able to present material that will help folks on their journey toward EHR Goodness.
Congrats! I’m a software product manager for a healthcare company in silcon valley. In the midst of this healthcare IT changes and the uncretain future, I enjoy reading John’s blog and looking forward to reading yours.
The establishment of EMR applications which is mandatory to improve patient safety and reduce / eliminate medical errors, is composed of the clinical data repository , computerized physician order entry , pharmacy management system and the electronic medication administration record (eMAR).
Jay –
I would agree that EHR is becoming a key part of medical care delivery. However, I am a strong believer that just slapping a system in there will NOT fix the process problems that are currently endemic to healthcare.
Jamie is right that enforcing IT technology in the health care system would not reduce the health problems we currently have, but EMR and EHR would be really helpful in the health care sector in the future.