HOUSTON – With most medical students trained to use electronic medical records, they are looking to join practices that have one in place – or medical practices are looking to them to help with the rollout.

According to a recent survey by Epocrates, 84 percent of medical students had experience with an EMR during their clinical rotations, and 90 percent said use of an EMR would be an important factor in choosing where to practice medicine.

This was the case for Medhavi Jogi, MD, and Fareed Elhaj, MD, graduates of the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.

“I don’t think I could run a practice without an electronic chart,” said Jogi.

Jogi and Elhaj decided to do something that is rarely heard of fresh out of medical school: start their own practice.

Their first order of business was choosing an EMR. Jogi said the job, although a “painful process,” was easier for him than most doctors because he didn’t have to juggle seeing patients with implementing and digitizing records and charts.

Jogi chose an EMR from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based MedPlexus. The software vendor told him and Medhavi to create a Web site for their practice and use a patient portal. Jogi said 80 percent of their new patients are coming to the practice via the Web site.

“The patients that use the Internet want a doctor that knows how to use the Internet,” he said.

“Many of my classmates call me from practices they’ve joined saying ‘I’ve been tasked with figuring out EHR because I’m the young guy,’” said Jogi.

Amit Manhas, MD, is among them. Manhas joined Houston Metropolitan Cardiology Associates in July as its youngest doctor. He has been tasked with choosing an EMR for the practice and is the only one familiar with using the technology.

Manhas has already started looking at a handful of vendors, but what he is really looking for is software that sticks to the basics or “the bread and butter,” he said.

He compared an EMR to a cell phone: “You have all these features on the cell phone but how often do you really use them? You just want to make a phone call.”

Jogi agreed. When he was looking for his EMR, he said, “All I really wanted to know was, ‘Can I order an insulin syringe?’”

CM Mallipeddi, CEO of MedPlexus, said he is seeing a trend where younger doctors are seeing IT as essential to their practices. He said the digital divide is as simple as those who can type and those who can’t.

Jogi is not so sure. He has taken a poll of the doctors in his medical building (who are all older than he is) as to why they do not have EMRs. He said they are waiting for the “in” product that is not going to disappear.

“The older generation is more cautious, and they want to make sure what they pick will be around forever,” he said.