Admittedly, Hawaii is a small state, but it’s an interesting statement to make when one EMR company gets invited to supply the state-run health system’s sole EMR. Of course, this doesn’t mandate anything for doctors in private practice, so we’re talking about only 12 hospitals and 2 state-run clinics. Siemens will begin actively providing electronic medical records to Hawaii in November 2012 for around $29M, so hats off to them for getting this very important contract. Wonder how EMR incentive money works if you are a doctor to a state-run medical system. Does the hospital just get the incentive money since the doctor technically didn’t do the selection, implementation and reporting? It would seem justified to me.
Dr. West is an endocrinologist in private practice in Washington, DC. He completed fellowship training in Endocrinology and Metabolism at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. West opened The Washington Endocrine Clinic, PLLC, as a solo practice in 2009. He can be reached at doctorwestindc@gmail.com.