We often hear questions like these... “Why do we need to spend even more money on an EHR consultant? What good do they do?” “Can’t we just look at the top five systems out there and decide which one is best for us?.” The reason that a clinic should hire an EHR insider expert is simple -- "To avoid a lot of unnecessary problems, unexpected surprises and costs."   These systems are new, complex and expensive.  With most clinics  buying their first EHR, users are often disappointed at the “Go Live” phase because they just didn't know what to look for during the sales  demonstrations and site visits. This is one of the reasons that a vendor has both happy sites and unhappy sites, all using the same exact version. The one clinic knew what they were getting into, whereas the other clinic had made a lot of assumptions. Another unfortunate fact exists: Many sales reps are presenting the features that work well but they are not discussing the design faults in their system, unless you know to ask about them.  How would you know to ask questions like, "Do we have to create a virtual  progress note just to change the dosage of an Rx?"  It probably would not occur to you to ask this question... but that design flaw is actually out there and it's one of many that live sites are seeing once they go live.  Every system has some flaws here and there.  You just want to eliminate the systems that have far too many.

Let’s use an analogy to answer those questions by looking at the early automobile market.

It’s 1905 and most of us are driving horses and buggies, except for about 15% of the early adaptors who have already purchased their first automobile.  You’ve decided that it’s now time for you to buy an automobile but you have never owned one, have never driven one, nor have you ever paid for repairs, insurance or gas. You shop around, chat with friends and listen to the sales representatives who show you the great things that automobiles can do.

For the most part, the sales representatives are correct in what they are telling you -- at least about the features that they bring up during their sales pitch! You didn’t ask and they didn’t mention that this automobile only gets eight miles per gallon, that the oil filter is almost impossible to reach or that its tires wear out twice as fast as another manufacturer's car. 

Who would have ever known to ask such questions?  Not many of the first-time automobile buyers in 1905, that’s for sure.

But the automobile sales representatives in 1905 would have known to ask.  You can be sure that when they bought their own automobiles there where no surprises about anything.  They knew all about their own company’s problems and many of the problems that other manufacturers had.  That was because they all were industry insiders.

At EHRInsider we bring that kind of insider knowledge to your EHR search, the system purchase and the system implementation.