Vendor pushes EHR boundaries | EHR Watch

by JEFF ROWE, EDITOR

We ended last week by pointing to a Texas-based doctor/blogger who basically thinks EHRs have boxed themselves in technologically.

But while he makes a compelling argument, and there are obviously disadvantages to current EHR technology, all hope may not be lost. For example, it seems PracticeFusion is going to be spending the next year trying to push the EHR boundaries in several different directions.

This article notes that “On Sunday night the company will launch a physician review portal built on feedback in surveys from the patients of doctors using Practice Fusion’s Web-based electronic medical records system. Then later this week the company will release ChartShare, which will allow doctors in and out of PracticeFusion’s network to chat with one another similar to using Facebook chat . . .”

Over the next year, the article adds, PracticeFusion will be incorporating appointment scheduling, as well as the capacity for “patients with similar health problems . . . to talk with one another online or seek out second opinions through Practice Fusion’s platform.” And then the company has plans to wade into telemedicine.

We can’t help wondering, however, whether such steps would be enough to overcome our blogger’s concerns. After all, the steps PracticeFusion has in mind remindus of his belief that “literally thousands of separate software programs would have to undergo major and expensive revisions in order to meet universal communication standards.”

Not that PracticeFusion is consciously pursuing such standards, but most vendors will want to give providers as many options as possible, so in many ways the goals are the same. The question, then, seems to be how long it would take any vendor, using the current approach, to achieve his ideal, which is “the standardization of a common computer code or database language for the storage and organization of health care information much like HTML is the universal computer language for internet browsers. Once a standard database language is in place then different EMRs essentially become browsers. Their selling points then become based on how effectively and clearly they present the information to the user plus whatever additional bells and whistles the user prefers.”

So assuming that’s the goal, are PracticeFusion’s steps, however useful they may well be for providers, going to move us significantly closer?


Vendor pushes EHR boundaries | EHR Watch