The HealthITBlog

Healthcare Informatics and Technology

Cloud based EHRs – a response to PracticeFusion

In response to Dr Rowley’s posting

Note: I attempted to comment in the EHRBloggers blog but there were technical glitches with the “word” verification (used to prevent spamming) thus I am writing my comment here

Dr Rowley,
Thank you for your well crafted insight into the benefits of ‘cloud’ oriented EHRs, especially for solo practitioners who may not wish to invest in in-house hardware, software and associated maintenance.
Some responses:
1. Is a solo practitioner or very small medical practice, likely to have the high bandwidth internet connection required for SaaS based EHR?

2. Like any other SaaS solution, does the Dr’s practice grind to a halt because an Internet connection is down (due to the fault of the ISP or any other conditions beyond his control) and the physician cannot request an EMR for a patient?

3. The ‘care co-ordination’ you write about sounds wonderful, my question is what technical standards exist for medical practices to exchange EMR data ? Or is the ‘care co-ordination’ you write about restricted to medical practices that use the PracticeFusion cloud?

Looking forward to the ongoing conversation

September 25, 2009 Posted by jgershater | Health Information Technology | , , , | 3 Comments

EMR or EHR, what’s the difference

I hear the terms EMR (Electronic Medical Record) and EHR (Electronic Health Record) bandied about interchangeably.
So what is the difference.
Based on some reading I offer the following:

EMR – An electronic record of a person’s health related information that is gathered and managed from a single organization
EHR- An electronic record of a person’s health related information that is gathered and managed from a many organizations.

So my EMR is generated by my family physician and his/her nurse, but my EHR includes medical information from visits to specialists as well, perhaps even dentists and podiatrists. An EHR vendor thus needs to provide interfaces that allow data to be easily interchanged. In this regard I am starting to read about LOINC and HL7, though I understand the latter to be somewhat outdated.

September 25, 2009 Posted by jgershater | Health Information Technology | , , , | 6 Comments