For many years we have listened to the concept that rolling out an electronic medical record (EMR) solution for a health system is the holy grail, worth mortgaging future income streams with the promise of lower costs, improved billing efficiency, and improved clinical outcomes-in that order.
In the U.S., the country that has most embraced the adoption of EMR systems, the cost of healthcare delivery has risen inexorably. It is high time that healthcare providers, their core stakeholders in clinical care and patients demand cost effective solutions that deliver on their needs and vendors meet those needs. Hospitals should demand value for money when purchasing a system, receiving an end to end solution, using testing protocols and acceptance criteria to ensure this.
Just because a software application works as designed does not make it effective. The best EMR solutions should enable and enhance the delivery of clinical care and not interfere with clinician productivity or engagement with the patient.
My assertion is that in the vast majority of cases, the implementation of EMR systems is executive-led, rather than clinician-led, and that the law of unintended consequences applies.
- By undergoing a major project, the health organization becomes a slave to the vendor in terms of clinical protocols, rather than the other way around.
- In doing so, much of the intangible asset that is internal clinical Intellectual Property is lost during the process.
- By implementing such a system, the inherent inertia/inflexibility serves as an unfortunate obstacle to continuous improvement, due to the convolutions and change requests that are needed to implement even minor changes in clinical processes and workflow.
- Except for the very few, most clinicians feel powerless to influence the decision support and alert protocols that are embedded in the system.
- Non-intuitive UIs can mean clinicians lose valuable face-time with patients because they have to enter data.
If this sounds like a Luddite’s take on technology in healthcare, the truth is completely the opposite. If you consider the consumer applications and devices that were in vogue when some EMR systems started gaining traction, you will note what era they draw from: PCs were said to be “IBM compatible,” floppy disks were still the main method of large (1.44 MB!!) file transfer, and mobile phones were the size of a brick. In today’s world of mobile-first technology, tablets that a 3-year-old can operate, cloud computing, and ubiquitous Internet access, why do we accept the fact that the EMR technology experience has not moved on?
The answer might be found in how daunting the challenge seems. First, healthcare providers, both private and public, are conservative beasts. After all, they cannot play fast and loose when their “product” is the treatment of an ill person. This in turn limits opportunities for startups to get the opportunity to show how the existing model can be disrupted. With limited initial traction before they can prove their model, funding can dry up and they are held up as another example of why it is best to deal with the behemoths of the industry.
Second, in an industry where even the most validated clinical treatments still take years to become ubiquitous, what chance is there that the enterprise software model will move so rapidly that the existing players are unable to react?
Third, it is unfortunate that most healthcare organizations do not realize how much they are missing out on and how good the EMR experience could be.
Fortunately, there is hope. With funding for healthcare disruption at record heights, it is inevitable that the game will change in the near future. With the existing big players currently getting the easy pickings, their appetite for dramatic innovation is low. Thus it is almost a perfect storm for a disrupter.
At Sláinte Healthcare, we like to think we are one of a coterie of challengers to the perceived world order when it comes to EMRs, and I fancy the chances of a company like us succeeding in the face of the obvious market challenges that exist.
One of the ways companies such as Sláinte can compete is to demonstrate their capability in non-traditional ways. Our clinician centric EMR, Vitro delivers through a rapid implementation model that means our clients realise their investment and efficiencies within months of project kick off. Putting the patients and users at the centre of Vitro means we understanding their needs, user adoption is immediate because Vitro was built around them, it retains the same look and feel as their existing documents and processes. For example, in conjunction with Microsoft, we rose to the challenge of delivering a centralized EMR across more than 60 countries in multiple languages to serve thousands of clinicians who had no time to receive training. The fact that we were able to deliver on such a challenge-in a matter of months and all delivered pro bono-has demonstrated to our clients that no project is too big or challenge too great for us to meet. This greatly changes the perception of risk on the clients’ side and allows more sales conversions to develop.
This capability, along with a growing cast of happy clients, creates the opportunity to pique the interest of the market.
This was taken from the Microsoft Health Blog which was posted 29/04/2015
www.microsoft.com/en-us/health/blogs/using-technology-to-disrupt-healthcare/default.aspx#fbid=tYHuSxSgIYp
Andrew Murphy - CEO Sláinte Healthcare
Andrew founded Sláinte Healthcare in 2006. Prior to founding Sláinte Healthcare, Andrew held senior management roles with Henkel, leading major software-led efficiency improvements that delivered major cost reductions and quality improvements. Andrew has a Chemical Engineering degree from Cork Institute of Technology, and a first class honours MBA from Smurfit Business School, UCD.
LinkedIn:http://ie.linkedin.com/in/andrewmurphyslainte