Shahid's healthcare IT, EMR, EHR, PHR, medical content, and document managment advisory service. Enjoy.

A doctor friend of mine and I were talking about our HIMSS trip and how many physicians told us were getting “sick and tired” of the business of medical practice. I spoke with a number of docs there looking to get out of medicine and into technology, marketing, management, or other fields. I thought for sure that there couldn’t be that many physicians looking for a career change.

Boy, was I wrong. Another physician buddy of mine sent me a note about the MedicalFusion Conference. The whole purpose of the conference is to help physicians who are looking for a career change. Here’s what the organizers said about the conference:

Physician career change is the focus of the Medical Fusion conference.Non-clinical jobs, medical journalism, medical informatics, physician entrepreneurs, medical device development, and venture capital are all topics that will be covered at this exciting new event.

Whether you are a medical resident who wants to learn about all of the possibilities available to you or a retired physician looking for entrepreneurial side ventures, this is the conference for you. Come to Medical Fusion and get the tools necessary to take your career to the next level.

Medical Fusion is for physicians interested in exploring non-clinical career opportunities. Designed to teach physicians how to leverage their medical training and expand their careers, participants receive training from experts with practical knowledge on a variety of non-clinical subjects.

Medical Fusion is designed as a “tool box” for the modern physician. Clinical physicians today need to know how to leverage their clinical training in new and unique ways. Medical Fusion provides broad exposure to a variety of niche areas, leaving participants with practical steps to begin crafting the career they’ve always wanted. Come learn from physicians who’ve already developed their own unique careers.

Medical Fusion:  a new medical event for physicians, by physicians.

I found the idea of this conference so fascinating that I’m planning on attending. I hope to see you there.

{ 0 comments }

A friend of mine just sent out the following note:

There have been developments in the last few days that have caused CCHIT to pause “providing direction on the requirements for test step demonstration for the Interim Final Rule Stage 1 criteria. The reason is because NIST is now publishing Test Methods and Procedures on their website that Certifying Bodies will have to comply with.  Therefore, we (CCHIT) will be reviewing their published materials and revising our test scripts for Meaningful Use to match.  You can see what they are developing at http://healthcare.NIST.gov and clicking on the box that has Meaningful Use in it.  You will see that they are publishing their materials in 4 “Waves”, and they have only completed Wave 1.  Expected timeframe for completion of Wave 4 is unknown, but we are hoping it will be by the end of April.  CCHIT will take the published materials from NIST to develop Test Scripts to test Meaningful Use technology compliance for Stage 1.  We hope to be able to start this testing in May.  In the meantime, we will be removing all the Meaningful Use specific test steps out of our Comprehensive test scripts and completely separating the Comprehensive and Meaningful Use testing processes.”

The quote above came from CCHIT and I’ve been looking at the materials at NIST.gov since the end of February. It’s good stuff. The draft test procedures are already online while the final procedures won’t be up for a few months I think.

UPDATE: Sue Reber from CCHIT indicated that they didn’t put out this statement today. So, treat the information as rumor until they provide additional information in the next few weeks.

{ 2 comments }

John Lynn and I spent a few hours together at HIMSS this past week and he gave me a preview of his new How to Select an EMR eBook. When he first told me about it, I figured it was yet another how to go guide with generalities and high level advice. However, as he and I walked through the various sections I became more and impressed to the point where I now recommend it as a must-read for anyone that’s looking to purchase an EMR and wants to know how to make sure they don’t get sold a lemon by a vendor.

The text is readable and written in a punchy, “just the facts, ma’am” style to make sure it keeps flowing quickly to get to the meat and potatoes without trying to tell you what you already know. John starts out by talking about the difference between EMRs and EHRs then jumps straight into how to gain EMR implementation buy-in from users. He then talks about guaranteed benefits, possible benefits, potential dubious benefits, and finally the long-term benefits of EMRs. This is important so that you’re well advised of what an EMR sales person will tell you so that you can debate their points. What I love about this section is that he makes the benefits (or promises) easy to understand so that can you can decide whether you’ll see those benefits or not.

In the next section John goes into how to narrow the selection field based on pricing models (monthly, upfront, etc.), deployment models (cloud, SaaS, on-premise, etc.), documentation interface, type of integration with practice management systems, interfaces, specialty-specific features, data conversion support, and certifications. While these sections are good, I have suggested to John that he add some information on managed appliances as well (something I’m covering in a book I’m writing). An appliance located on-premise but completely managed and backed up remotely by the vendor will be a common model in the future.

After narrowing the EMR vendors field section, John jumps into the details to consider when evaluating EMR vendors. This includes how to integrate the benefits you’re looking for, “True” EMR price, the EMR user interface, the ARRA (HITECH) stimulus money, how to match EMR’s target organization size with your organization’s culture. He goes into several pages of details about how to get the right demos, how to ask good questions, and how EMR vendors might either mislead you (accidentally or on purpose) or how you might misunderstand their answers to your questions. He concludes the demo’s section by telling you how to talk to your friends and colleagues and perform site visits to make sure their installation will work in your environment.

The final selection guidelines and the contract negotiation section itself is worth the price of the book alone. John goes into all the major parts of the contracts and explains what each part means and how you should respond for each item. In the end the book is closed out with a “Managing Expectations” section in which he tells you how to be sure you set the right expectations for success.

If you’re looking to select an EMR, this is a great book to start with. No fluff, just sound advice and a “how to” guide that you can trust to get you to a good selection and purchase decision.

{ 0 comments }