EHR Implementation: Gathering Information

This is your first day on the job as Assistant Director in the HIM department at Community Medical Center (CMC). You meet with the HIM Director and she explains that CMC has given her the go-ahead to begin the process of implementing an electronic medical record. As Assistant Director, you will have responsibility for several phases of this important project. Your Director knows that while you have earned an RHIT certification, you still need to learn some background before you begin.

EHR Implementation: Investigating Vendors

The HIM Director assigns you a very important task in rolling out an EHR: investigating vendors. She recommends researching different vendors. The two of you discuss some important questions to determine which software best meets your organization’s needs: What features are must-haves? What features are strong wants, but not absolutely necessary? What does one vendor have that another doesn’t? Your budget has a limit. Will this vendor meet your budget? How might this impact staffing?

Compare alternatives: The lower-cost product does not have a physician order component, which means physician orders will be hand-written and you will have to scan them to add to the EHR. The mid-cost product does not link to diagnostic reports. The higher-cost product gives you the convenience of a fully electronic record, but at a price. You still must budget for scanners, because you know there are still paper documents that the HIM department receives that will need to be added to the EHR.

Deliverable:

1. In your initial post, research and evaluate two different vendors and recommend one of them to the Director and add the reasons why you picked one vendor over the other.

2. In at least one of your responses to your classmates, evaluate their decision and either recommend actions for them OR debate why they chose a certain vendor.