EHR Backlash

See the following -

New Spike in EHR Replacement Activity Jars Larger Physician Practice Market, 2018 Black Book Survey

Press Release | Black Book Research | April 16, 2018

Highly functional, highly customizable integrated EHR, Practice Management, Revenue Cycle Management and ICD10/ Coding products are proving to be the sought after technology solution of choice for groups and clinics with 12 or more practitioners according to the nearly 19,000 total EHR users responding to the six month client satisfaction poll released today. Cloud-based mobile solutions for on-demand data with access to practice actionable insight into financial performance, compliance tracking and contractual quality goals received the top interest by groups in the replacement mode (93 percent), followed by Telehealth/Virtual Visit Support (87 percent) and Speech Recognition Solutions for hands-free data entry (82 percent).

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$100 Million Epic Install Dampens Lifespan Health System's Credit

Bob Herman | Modern Healthcare | June 6, 2014

A multimillion-dollar electronic health-record system installation is eroding the cash flow, and bond rating, of Rhode Island's largest health system. Read More »

$100 Million Epic Install Dampens Lifespan Rhode Island Healthcare's Credit

Scott Silverstein | Health Care Renewal | June 22, 2014

Lifespan Rhode Island Healthcare System's Siemens EHR was apparently causing thousands of electronically-generated prescriptions to become scrambled, as I posted in Nov. 2011 here: http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2011/11/lifespan-rhode-island-yet-another.html. Due to this "glitch" - and other factors, I surmise - they switched to Epic. Here are the current results [see $100 Million Epic Install Dampens Lifespan Health System's Credit]...

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6 Ways Physicians can Free Patient Records

A certain doctor's practice had been using EHR software for many years; they had been paying a pretty penny too.  For their own reasons they wanted to change their software. They were going to brave the uncertain and scary world of transitioning their current EHR to another one. A round of applause for that decision alone, for many practices tolerate their EHR system only because they have paid a lot of money for it and have spent a lot of time training on it. They just don’t want to go through the pain all over again. This works out in favor of most EHR system vendors, doesn't it? Make the process so painful and costly that the physicians would not want to go through it again, thereby locking the caregivers into an eternal commitment.

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Bad EHR Design and Physician Dissatisfaction: It’s a Matter of Wasted Time.

As reported last year at HIMSS and by many online news and opinion sources since, physician dissatisfaction with EHRs is growing. Indeed, while this blog post doesn’t focus on the broader picture, general physician career dissatisfaction is disconcertingly high. The breakneck push for more and better EHR use as a component of regular medical care is a significant part of that malaise, but it is insufficient as an explanation. Read More »

Big Tech Should Stay Out of Healthcare

Matthew Buck | Washington Monthly | December 2, 2019

...The use of digital technology in health care has enormous promise, to be sure. But, as the Wall Street Journal's coverage of Google's Project Nightingale revealed, there is also a potential dark side to these projects. Ascension, it noted, "also hopes to mine data to identify additional tests that could be necessary or other ways in which the system could generate more revenue from patients, documents show." That detail raises a key question that's largely overlooked in our health care debates: should the drive to maximize corporate revenues determine how health information technology develops and becomes integrated into medical practice, or should that be determined by medical science and the public?...An alternative path exists. In the 1970s, the Veterans Affairs Administration (VA) developed VistA, an open-source code system that was the country's first EHR system... Read More »

Black Book Releases Research on "The Interoperability Tangle"...HIE Replacements, Middleware and FHIR

Press Release | Black Book Research | April 7, 2016

2,012 provider HIE users and 2,300 payer HIE users, as well as 4,100 prospective HIE users of all user types were polled to understand the importance of interoperability in their strategic planning initiatives, as well as their ongoing and new challenges in areas such as connectivity and data exchange. Between Q3 2015 and Q1 2016, the survey recorded growing HIE user frustration over the lack of standardization and readiness of unprepared providers and payers...“Every stakeholder in the healthcare delivery process cannot establish the infrastructure needed to support interoperability, as evidenced by 83% of physician practices responding and 40% of hospitals, that currently admit they are still in the planning and catch up stages of sending and sharing secure, relevant data, “ said Doug Brown, Managing Partner of Black Book.

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Black Book Research Warns Gov. Regs and Lousy EHRs are Driving Independent Medical Practices into Extinction

Press Release | Black Book Market Research | June 13, 2016

Two-thirds of independent practices now deliberately selling out to hospital systems and larger groups or closing down by 2019 as the resource-intensive requirements of MIPS, administrative burdens, and under-optimized technology may make the transition to value-based care too discouraging...Despite small practice education, training and technical assistance programs promised from CMS to help onboard physicians with the MACRA programs, 89% of the remaining solo practices expect to minimize Medicare volumes as to not be required to submit reports for the quality and clinical practice improvement activities or report in the cost performance category.

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Burgess Bill Addresses Interoperability, the Leading Health IT Issue in the US

Health care reformers around the country should be jumping up to thank Representative Michael C. Burgess (R-Texas), an MD who is working with his staff to write a bill to promote Health IT interoperability. Readers of Open Health News probably know that interoperability--in simple terms, the ability of any authorized user to read a medical record from any source--has emerged as one of the two top burning issues of health IT, the other one being the lack of usability of proprietary/lock-in electronic health records (EHRs).

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Canadian Physicians Choose Pen and Paper Over EHR During Cerner Go-Live

Akanksha Jayanthi | Becker's Health IT & CIO Review | June 8, 2016

Vancouver Island Health Authority in British Columbia, Canada, is in the midst of rolling out Cerner's EHR across its system, but physicians are petitioning to suspend the go-live, citing concerns regarding patient safety, according to a Times Colonist report. In 2013, Island Health signed a 10-year, $50 million deal with Cerner to implement the EHR across the system, which includes an additional $124 million for hardware and training. The EHR went live at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, a residential care center and another health center on March 19...

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CEO Resigns Amid Troubled Cerner EHR Rollout

Erin McCann | Healthcare IT News | May 30, 2014

'Aggressive' [Cerner] EHR rollout and myriad staff concerns at center

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CFOs Stress Need for Next Generation RCM Tools but Hefty MU Investments Deplete Many Hospital’s Cash Reserves, Black Book Survey Reports

Press Release | Black Book | November 3, 2014

Seventy-nine percent of hospital CFOs running outdated financial systems say they nervously face the coming year without evolved Revenue Cycle tools. Continued meaningful use expenses for EHR, HIE, analytics, portals and mobile apps are hitting hospitals hard as changes in payment models based on patient compliance, pricing transparency, and population health demand even more capital...

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CHIME Time: Hitting the wall on meaningful use

Edith Dees | Modern Healthcare | June 3, 2014

However, these recent events pale compared with the energy and attention we're giving to achieve Stage 2 meaningful-use incentives for electronic health-record systems. We are discovering vendor interoperability issues daily. Read More »

Doctors Are Overloaded with Electronic Alerts, and That’s Bad for Patients

Shefali Luthra | The Washington Post | June 13, 2016

Some people receive constant reminders on their smartphones: birthdays, anniversaries, doctor’s appointments, social engagements. At work, their computers prompt them to meet deadlines, attend meetings and have lunch with the boss. Prodding here and pinging there, these pop-up interruptions can turn into noise to be ignored instead of helpful nudges. Something similar is happening to doctors, nurses and pharmacists. And when they’re hit with too much information, the result can be a health hazard...

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Doctors Say Data Fees Are Blocking Health Reform

Arthur Allen | Politico | February 23, 2015

As they move to exchange patient information with hospitals and other health care partners, doctors are suffering sticker shock: The vendors of the health care software want thousands of dollars to unlock the data so they can be shared. It may take an act of Congress to provide relief...The exorbitant prices to transmit and receive data, providers and IT specialists say, can amount to billions a year. And the electronic health record industry is increasingly reliant on this revenue...

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