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Originally Posted by NatCh
From where I'm sitting, I can tell you that the idea of a fully Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is a really big cookie that larger hospitals are chasing, and from what I can see, it's apparently really hard to do (but that may depend some on how temperamental your medical personnel are).
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The temperamental staff is the biggest problem with electronic charting. I was hired by a rather large clinic to develop a strategy for moving to electronic charting.
I began by reviewing the forms they use most often, how they use them, etc. The first thing I noticed was they used a requisition form for lab work on which the doctor would use an ink stamp to put lines in the top right on which to write the patient name, number, etc.
Since it was an internal form, and the ink stamp space was horribly congested to the point one could NEVER read what it said when it was faxed someplace -- I created an almost identical copy of the form, but added a VERY clear and large box at the top in which to put this information (with the fields all labeled, and for simplicity sake in the same order as the stamp).
I replaced their paper form with a paper form. I was just trying to simplify things and make them more efficient BEFORE I threw the computer into the equation.
What happened? Despite our best efforts -- we kept getting lab work forms back from the Doctors with the information crammed into the top corner where the stamp used to be (their stamps were taken away when the form was "corrected"). The clearly labeled easy to write in section for this information that took almost 1/4 of the form --- blank.
This went on for months -- management finally decided to give stamps back and the Doctors went back to them. "But that's how we do it."
So, to get back on topic. If the company hopes to ever sell any of these devices, they need to provide EXTENSIVE support to any hospital that purchases them. They need to be highly customized to how each different practice charts, or the staff will never adopt them and will fight every chance they get. Hence the reason for the high cost (overlooking the just because they can point).
If the company can get the markups it looks like they are on each device, they can afford to give support and training.