Stuart Smith's Letter To The Register
As the Boothbay Peninsula moves forward with the effects of a MaineHealth/Lincoln County HealthCare decision to close St. Andrews Hospital, I have served on the 4 Town Regional Task Force. This has been an unprecedented cooperation between 4 towns in this region that has generated many continuing activities that will benefit all towns in our region.
But let me get back to the MH/LCH decision. We are told that MaineHealth has spent over $150 million on an Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system that helps all of its “subsidiaries.” I can appreciate this because my work is in software development.
I do question the $150 million figure. I think it is extremely high and Portland has had a real failure in its implementation. So much so that it looks like LCH will not have a real integrated EMR until 2015 and financial software problems exemplify a major failure of MH to create any real benefit to the State. Millions of dollars have been charged to member hospitals and staff time (salaries and mileage) over the past 2-3 years with no benefit. [...]
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