President's Letter

We are now well into the Bush administration's push for an Electronic Health Record (EHR), and most experts agree that nothing can be done without the standardization of clinical vocabularies and codes. However, by some estimates these standards are more than a year away.

What does this mean for healthcare providers? Are they supposed to wait until standards are developed and then search for vendors that support the new specifications, before considering new technology?

No. The goal of an EHR is interoperability. This starts within your own delivery system walls and will eventually expand to include other healthcare providers. Efficiency can be achieved when partnered with a single vendor whose focus is providing a comprehensive system that responds to the changes in the healthcare industry.

There are advantages in having mission critical applications such as census management, clinical documentation, reimbursement, and financial reporting from a single vendor versus many. Niche level products serve their purpose well until information needs to be exchanged, and the functionality and support required to do so are lacking. The result of system consolidation becomes labor intensive, time consuming, and expensive.

When the majority of applications are developed and supported on a single relational database, the incorporation of standards (when they arrive), and the inevitable exchange of information with other providers will be successful.

With highest regards,
Joseph J. Fahey
Chief Executive Officer

 

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