October 15th, 2008
How electronic records reach your doctor
While on the table for my regular check-up my doctor let slip that the practice is getting an Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system early next year.
What kind, I asked? NextGen, she said. How, I wondered? The hospital, she answered.
The key point here is the second one. Hospitals are driving the adoption of EMRs in most medical offices. Alliances between vendors work only when they can move down the chain, from the big boys to the smaller.
Key customers are key.
In the case of my doctor, I did some research and found she’s going to be a Windows shop. While offering a nod to platform independence, the Philly-based company (a unit of QSI) generally builds on Microsoft tools.
This means there will be Microsoft HealthVault interoperability and a Microsoft-centric architecture.
I don’t think this matters to her. What matters is that the hospital her practice is attached to is telling her to do this. So she will do this.
It’s an important lesson. In medicine change comes from the top down.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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