Both the VA and Kaiser have been 2 of the real success stories with electronic medical records, and as we all read in the press while the transitioning was taking place, it was not a smooth road, there are bumps with implementing any medical records system, but the one thing the doctors had going at both was no need for any investment from their part as the VA and Kaiser were there to foot the bill, unlike the small individual practices.
Even with subsidies, there's still the expense of the equipment portion, computers, servers, software etc. before they can take advantage of a hosted service from a hospital absorbing that portion of the expense. Thus far the tax breaks and incentives from CMS have still done little to encourage a change. One of the big questions raised as well deal with integration, which every business deals with today, in other words the information one enters travels beyond the walls of the practice, thus one error can travel many places, depending on how integrated a system is, so accuracy and crossing each "t" and dotting each "i" is critical as there are others who will use the same information for either treatment plans, medications, etc. BD
The future has arrived at Dr. Jay Mongiardo's office in La Mesa. Sitting in front of a computer mounted on a rolling stand in one of his examination rooms, the Kaiser Permanente physician pulled up an electronic record for one of his patients.
Among doctors without electronic medical records, 66 percent cited the high cost of buying a system as a major barrier.
A medical practice can spend $70,000 or more converting paper records to an electronic system, and the switch can create additional costs for training and lost production time during the adoption phase. For offices with one or two doctors, which account for about half of the practices in the country, those expenses can be significant.
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