Ambulatory EHR products getting better, but providers still need more
Although they have improved in recent years, health IT vendors need to produce better products for community physician practices, according to an article published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Health Information Management Association.
“Some argue that the health IT industry has overlooked this foundational layer of the health infrastructure that has such a clear need for EHR technology—or at least has not produced specialized health IT that is appropriate for physician use,” wrote Blair Butterfield, president of VitaHealth Software for North America, a cloud-based EHR vendor, based in Minneapolis.
Citing a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic that investigated how three small practices were using EHRs, Butterfield listed several features and functionalities that vendors should focus on for ambulatory settings:
- Customization;
- Capability to mimic paper-based process;
- Usability;
- Compatability with mobile devices; and
- Integrated clinical decision support.
Until the HITECH Act was passed to encourage EHR adoption and development, EHR products installed in ambulatory settings far too often resembled legacy models used in hospitals, “which simply did not translate and scale down effectively for practices,” according to Butterfield. This has begun to change, largely because of inexpensive cloud-based computing capabilities and the emergence of smart mobile platforms, but more can be done.
“The EHR revolution for practices seems to finally be underway, with technologies and incentives coming together to create an urgent need for systems,” he concluded. While regulatory structures and a growing collection of personal health information present challenges to data management and health IT development, “the opportunity to digitally transform healthcare is one of the most important challenges this industry will face.”