Just heard about a health system that has $2.5 million set aside to promote a single EHR platform in their area.
— EMR, EHR and HIT (@ehrandhit) March 6, 2015
I heard about this investment at an ACO conferences in Las Vegas. It had been a while since I’d written about the hospital subsidizing the cost of an EHR for their affiliate providers. We all know they’ve been implementing an EHR with their owned practices. However, in a lot of areas the hospital is also spending a bunch of money subsidizing the cost of EHR for their affiliated providers as well.
The above comment is even more interesting in the context of an ACO. Basically, this health system’s progress towards an ACO gave them a really great reason why they should spend money on an EHR for even their affiliate providers. They obviously saw a lot of value in having all the providers and hospitals on a single EHR. Otherwise they wouldn’t have made an investment like this.
This also seems to highlight their bleak outlook on healthcare interoperability. If interoperability was a reality, would they really care that much about having everyone on a single EHR platform?
What is absolutely clear to me is that an ACO needs technology to connect all of the entities in the organization. The single EHR approach is one way. However, there’s a really strong argument to be made that most ACOs are going to be a heterogeneous environment. Where does that leave the ACO?
