Finding the Right EHR for Your Practice
Knowing which EHR to choose can be daunting at best. There are hundreds of products out there, and the list seems to be growing all the time. With the market explosion of gadgets like smartphones and tablet PCs, even EHR vendors have followed suit. One product, Caretool's iChart (www.caretools.com
Ultimately, no vendor's sales pitch or flashy demonstration can compete with real-world experiences shared by fellow physicians actually using these products in the field. One doesn't have to look far to find colleagues willing to share their thoughts about a particular EHR product, but to get a more objective perspective, several well-organized resources are available where these reviews and ratings have been compiled and summarized.
Recently, for example, a health care market research firm known as KLAS (www.klasresearch.com
Physicians looking for an EHR should also investigate their specialty organization. Most academies have some EHR resources available to their members, and one really useful example is the American Academy of Family Physicians' Center for Health Information Technology (www.centerforhit.org
Such resources can be particularly helpful because a product that fits well in one clinical setting may not perform well in another. Some EHRs, such as Wellsoft's EDIS (www.wellsoft.com
The reality is that no single EHR product will work for every practice. Even among the most highly rated products, there are vast differences in how much they cost, how they are implemented, and how they function—from the way in which data is collected and notes are generated to the way they manage the scheduling and coding of office visits. Here are a few well-regarded EHRs and some of the differences among them:
▸ eClinicalWorks (www.eclinicalworks.com
▸ EpicCare (www.epic.com
▸ AmazingCharts (www.amazingcharts.com
It is important to note that all of these EHRs have been approved by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) and claim to meet the requirements needed to take advantage of increased Medicare reimbursements. No matter which you choose, these criteria can be helpful in affirming you've made the right decision.
Dr. Skolnik, associate director of the family medicine residency program at Abington (Pa.) Memorial Hospital, is professor of family and community medicine at Temple University, Philadelphia. Dr. Notte is in private practice in Chalfont, Pa. They are partners in EHR Practice Consultants (www.ehrpc.cominfo@ehrpc.com
