Hello Molly Merrill,

Some of our new clients are saying that their voice recognition software (EMR in built) fails to give a error free transcripts. Since the EMR companies promising doctors that they can reduce their transcription cost by implementing Particular EMR. If an EMR gives a error free transcripts then they(doctors) will feel about their EMR implementation or else they will feel about their EMR. So what do you think about this. Can we add this one as a sixth worst myth?

If docs were the people most interested in EHR technologies, we'd have been out there already buying them up. We love other medical technologies. We haven't yet fallen in love with EHRs.

Clinicians aren't pushing EHR technologies. Non-clinicians are ... for their own, non-clinical purposes. The results are telling.

Since we haven't liked what's been put out there, the feds got involved to carrot/stick us into buying it anyway.

Bureaucrats aren't qualified to tell surgeons what tools to use to cut open a belly.

Neither are they qualified to tell radiologists what kind of equipment produces desired images.

And ... neither are they qualified to tell clinicians what work-flow/documentation processes work best for us during patient encounters.

Hobie 18. You manbe correct with a very few and in the future, but "check the box" is still a feature of all EMRs/EHR no matter what the device friendly utility you have. However, current and for the foreseeable future, docs are using lap tops in the out patient arena (e.g. EPIC) with movable screen (often with back of doc to patient). The transition to mobile devices will likely occur but the transition is changing the content and integrative ability of physicians that is so hard to learn. So far, there is not much concern about "check the box" and its effect on "medical rationale" but like security/privacy it will become a big issue until spoken words can be automated into an acceptable medical record format.
Payers know that most docs are upcoding now with EMR and the 15 minute level 3 visit with docs with EMRs are nearly all level 4 by checking an extra box--not really considering the disorder. Enhanced revenue is assured and medical inflation above the CPI continues unabated. Audit and controls have never been enforced--politically a hot potato.

Good golly Ms. Molly. How wrong can you be? Having been in healthcare 44 years and recorded data in all manners including EMRs of renouwn, I can tell you that docs are concentrated on the EMR/EHR format and not the patient's eyes or listening well nor touching patients as frequently. I am a doc in a VERY big IT company and yes, we are at the start of the start of digital records. I do fear that 7 years of integrative learning a doc unergoes, will be unlearned my formats requiring that all boxes be checked for payment purposes mostly. Subtlities from non verbal clues are being missed as I watch undergraduates concentrate on the keyboard and not the face of the patient. Many have adopted scribes to enter the data in EHR/EMR so that the ART is not lost.
Most practices are 2-3 docs, and $100,000 is a BIG deterent including having a paper system for those docs running simutanteously who have not yet digitalized.
The barriers are bigger than you think. Age is not a factor.

"Older physicians often lead the charge for an EMR transition in order to prepare their practice for sale when they retire."

While it is possible that a private practice might be purchased by a doctor fresh out of school and grateful to have a system already set up, it is more likely to be purchased by another established practice looking to expand. What are the odds that practice will be using the same EHR that you chose? In the present crowded marketplace, odds are slim. If the vendor is the same, that introduces other complications - can the system configuration choices of the two parties be merged? Can data be ported into a single instance?

In my opinion, if you are within 5 years of retirement, and already have a highly functional office, the return on an EMR system in that timeframe will be questionable.