Question

What are some pitfalls of selecting an EHR? How would you evaluate vendor proposals? Should information provided by vendors be accepted at face value? Why or why not? Is the product of the implementation process more important to success?

Answer 1

Some common pitfalls in selecting an HER are as follows:

• Hospitals indulge in the implementation process to be completed as quickly as possible due to high hourly rates of EHR vendors
• Sometimes meaningful use certification becomes the first thing to consider while choosing an EHR but it may not match the needs of the hospital.
• data entry being too cumbersome and time consuming thus leading to spending too much time on data entry
• Buying a software without the opinions of physicians and nurses can actually make it more difficult to have easy access to the software
• Price is directly related to the quality

To evaluate and select vendor proposal following points should be kept in mind:

• The proposal should be well organized. It should adhere to timeliness and completeness .all requested information should be submitted within your time frame.
• Select proposal in order for satisfying your needs. do not accept those that do not satisfy your needs
• Do not select the proposal which is out of your budget
• Vendor should be able to provide ongoing staff for regular intervals. the customer support service is also an important point to consider
• Choose the vendor as per your system requirements.

The information given by each vendor should not be accepted at face value. Once few vendors are selected based on above criteria, they are called for demonstration and compared with each other before selecting one. It is the final product which the company is getting through successful implementation which matters at last.