Peer Review: Docs Share EHR Tales
By
John Pulley
The best lessons learned are those you don't have to learn yourself. At least, that seems to be the idea behind a free, downloadable guide incorporating the experience of about 170 health IT professionals who have already implemented electronic health records (EHRs) in their organizations.
The best lessons learned are those you don't have to learn yourself. That seems to be the idea behind a free, downloadable guide incorporating the experience of about 170 health IT professionals who have already implemented electronic health records in their organizations.
"The CIO's Guide to Implementing EHRs in the HITECH Era," released this month by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), walks readers through the basics of HITECH funding, weighing incentives against cost, helping CEOs and other senior executives lead the change, and several elements of EHR implementation. It also includes advice for getting physicians' "buy in," frequently one of the thorniest issues of change management.
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act provides federal stimulus dollars to accelerate adoption of health IT. Health care providers must meet meaningful use standards to qualify for the incentives.
"In attempting to implement systems that achieve [meaningful use] standards, the biggest risk for organizations is that they will attempt to rush to implement systems," the authors write in a summary of the 80-page report. "This may lead organizations to make hasty vendor choices, fail to get clinician buy-in and do a careless job of achieving process change."
"The guide provides just a sample of the experience that CHIME's members have in implementing these complex systems," says Timothy Stettheimer, president of the organization's board of directors. "CHIME offers a variety of professional and educational support to its members, which is crucial to IT executives embarking on the EHR journey."