COLUMBUS, OH – The Ohio State Medical Association is launching a “Standards of Excellence” program to help reduce the financial risk for physicians who wish to adopt an electronic medical record system for their practices.

The Standards of Excellence Program, which is available exclusively to OSMA members, will identify vendors who have voluntarily agreed to include “physician-friendly” terms in their contracts with medical practices, including preferred pricing.

The OSMA – which represents more than 20,000 Ohio physicians – claims the program is the first of its kind in the United States. The association worked with the Atlanta-based Coker Group, a healthcare consulting firm, to identify terms and conditions that would help protect physicians’ rights in the EMR contracting process.

“We are very pleased to be able to offer this ground-breaking program to our members,” said Craig W. Anderson, MD, president of the OSMA. “Not only will members have access to EMR vendors that have physician-friendly contracts, but these vendors also have committed to offering our members discounts on their EMR products. We are very appreciative of the fact that this group of vendors are willing to work with us to encourage the use of EMRs in Ohio.”

Anderson said the new program would give practices more confidence in their decision to purchase an EMR.

Jeffery Daigrepont of the Coker Group said 30 percent of the firm’s projects are spent reinvigorating or removing failed EMR systems. He believes the Ohio program would help avert much of the risk associated with some of these failures.

“It says a lot about the vendors who are willing to step up and participate in a program like this,” Daigrepont said. “It truly helps level the playing field for physicians.”

Anderson and Daigrepont both warned that, regardless of the new program’s importance, Ohio physicians should still review each EMR contract thoroughly, as it may need to include practice-specific objectives that would be impossible to cover in a standard contract.