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There's no denying interest in electronic health records is increasing.
In Framework for Strategic Action, David Brailer, MD, PhD, the national coordinator for health information technology, described EHRs as "critical to delivering safe, affordable, and consumer-oriented health care."
Yet achieving the comprehensive vision of an EHR that Brailer describes-one that enables complete, accurate, and timely information at the point of care-still eludes many providers. Simply put, the associated cost, legacy system interactions, paradigm changes, and other issues associated are great.
As difficult as these challenges maybe, however, they shouldn't become an excuse for inaction. Providers can benefit greatly simply by taking steps to understand their level of readiness for building a migration path to an EHR. A key way to accomplish this task is by conducting a formal assessment.
Why a Readiness Assessment?
Despite the potential benefits associated with improved health IT, many risks are inherent in acquiring an EHR. Obviously, EHRs cost a lot of money and pressures are great to avoid a poor investment. Even if cost were not a factor, however, there typically are several other concerns. A formal readiness assessment can help your organization identify and develop strategies to address common issues such as the following:
Insufficient infrastructure. Many providers do not have the technical infrastructure to support the fully redundant servers, network capacity, or human-computer interface ubiquity needed to ensure full availability and desired performance.
Procedural weaknesses and inconsistencies. Most providers have not mapped their current processes to fix those that are broken or need improvement. Beginning to review clinical practice guidelines in paper form is an important start. Much...