Wal-Mart’s entrance into the EMR/PM market can be seen as just another example of the commercial market flexing its muscles and taking advantage of the leadership vacuum created by the lethargy of our HIE and RHIO efforts.
Why would a physician practice choose to undertake the solo effort of implementing an EMR? For one, I suspect that few practices are even aware of the intrinsic benefits of participation in a HIE. No doubt every software provider promises “interoperability” at the sales call, but why add one more interface for an exchange to manage?
When I began practicing medicine the County Medical Society and hospital staff meetings were attended by most physicians in the community. Now, as physicians become more estranged from their local medical societies and hospital medical staff decision processes it is more difficult to engage them in consolidated efforts for any cause.
We need to reach out to our community physicians with the same vigor as the commercial EMR sales force if we are to avoid having our communities slip into an EMR free for all.
He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign. Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)
