How are you going to choose an EMR? Don't forget Content, Context and Proactive Alerts.

Health Care professionals all over Canada are currently evaluating software vendors. There are many issues to take into account. How will it model my environment? How will it keep up with changes in regulations and best practices in the future? How happy are the current customers of the product? How much will it cost me? These are all valid evaluation criteria. I have heard a lot of great discussion on this subject and I am going to invite some of the health care professionals I know and respect to comment. However, in addition to their comments, I would ask you to consider a few other issues that seem to be somewhat neglected in the decision criteria...

On September 12th 2001 I got a call from my investment advisor. He let me know the markets had crashed. When I asked what to do, he let me know he was just giving me the "information" and there was no way to figure out what to do as this was an unprecedented event.

In an EMR, you have a lot of information. Content. Most of the software you can buy has the same basic data in it. So regardless of which product you choose the information is available to you.

At the same time I received the call from my advisor, some people around the world were getting the same calls but with some added information. Context. They were been given a history of the other times that disasters had hit the markets, how low they fell and how long it took for them to recover.

How do the EMR vendors you are looking at put context around the data they serve up? How easily available is it? How often is this contextual information updated? What is the source? These are all very important questions that all too often go without being asked.

Now had my broker been really sharp he would have called me when the second plane went into the twin towers and told me how to proactively manage my portfolio. Proactive Alerts. Had he contacted me at that time and told me of how disasters had effected the markets in the past and what I should do to insulate myself from the effects he would probably still be my broker today! While good brokers stared at the screen in disbelief, great brokers were on the phones setting buy targets for key stocks to help their clients off-set the damage.

And so it is with great software. Good software gives you all the information you need. Very good software makes it easily available with context to support your decision making. Great software will help you to manage the health care of your patients in a proactive way.

Incorporating an EMR is a lot of work. If, as a result of the investment you practice in the same way as you do today only electronically is it really worth the investment, time and effort?

There is a lot to consider when making a long term investment in an EMR, or considering a switch from your current EMR to another vendor. When you are evaluating the different vendors take some time out from features and functions that serve up data to study the contextual information available and even better, ask how the software can proactively alert you in ways that are meaningful to patient care.

So what do you think is often overlooked in an EMR selection process? Please share yoru thoughts with our users and guests to the site. We are listening...