November 4, 2009 by Atul.

As has been the trend, the upcoming EMR seminars in Palo Alto, CA  and Fremont, CA  this month (Nov.) have been sold out. This is not surprising and perhaps limiting the class size has not allowed more MD’s and their staff to join. These seminars, arranged by EMRseminars ( a service of PreviMed), are very different from many others because:

• These are painstakingly vendor-independent. (No kickbacks, no conflicts, No Stark Law issues).

• The content of the whole seminar is targeted for physicians and their office managers , especially in small group practice settings.

• the seminar is very comprehensive, spans everything from vendor selection to productivity impact to how/where to build disaster recovery for patient records to interoperability/flexibility.

For instance, what will the physician/practice do if the vendor goes out of business? Of course, no vendor will want to answer such a query.  

Similarly, what if the host hospital gets acquired by a large hospital chain and, as a result,  switches the EMR philosophy. What kind of disruption will it cause to a small group practice? And what can be done - apriori  (in advance) - to mitigate the downtime?

Finally, what should you pay attention to when you sign the agreement with te EMR vendor? Can you discuss the software defects or other performace issues - which could potentially impact patient safety - with your colleagues in other cities?

These are some of the questions that get discussed and addressed in our seminars;

 Hope you can catch some of the future sessions.

Posted in training, seminars, EMR incentive, EMR, PreviMed-General | No Comments »

March 29, 2009 by Atul.

Since I am attending the conference on SaaS- (SaaSCon 2009 , San Jose, CA) this coming week, I wanted to see how the EMR solutions and vendors are aligning themselves and/or designing the products to take advantage of this trend.For those unfamiliar with the SaaS terminology, the wikipedia definition and whatis definition are nearly the same: This is a way of renting software rather than buying it.I won’t get into the details of SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) or ASP (Application Service Provider) but it is important to know that SaaS is not a fad and has gathered enough momentum.In the meanwhile, other aspects of computing such as storage have also become mature enough to be available as a service.All these - software, storage, … - can be combined into a concept called “Everything As A Service”, typically represented as “XaaS” (X denotes the “don’t care/doesn’t matter” which component of the computing platform as all are available as service.). More on Xaas (pronounced as ZaaS) at this blog entry. Going back to the healthcare world, here are a few vendors who have jumped on the SaaS bandwagon (or at least have trend-aware marketing folks):MedPlexus :  “MedPlexus focuses on the business and clinical issues of the medical practice; using a combination of Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, BPO services, and a 360º practice performance analysis to provide solutions for its clients of all sizes.”RelayHealth : In their interview of this company, the blog HISTech Report writes:

RelayHealth’s SaaS Intelligent Network Encompassing Award-Winning Consumer Services, Revenue Cycle Management, and Pharmacy Transactions Prove the Power of Connectivity as a Service“.

Axolotl : From their press release about their product: Elysium’s community-wide Master Patient Index, EdgeServer(s), Interoperability Hub, Community Virtual Health Record, and EMR Lite with integrated e-prescribing are all provided as a software service (Saas).There are many others and expect more to join in.Of particular interest to me was a comment (in the TechCrunch’s note about a new product called Producteev- A SaaS product, recently announced and available):

Andy - March 18th, 2009 at 11:13 am PDT

I am a Systems Administrator for a small rural critical access hospital. We will be beginning implementation of a Electronic Medical Record system within the next 3 months. Producteev would help us manage this project more effectively. This project is going to last at least 2 years and affect over 200 employees. It is going to be very important that all tasks involved with the project are managed and communicated well to insure that the implementation goes as smoothly as possible. I have gone through the Producteev tour, and it looks like a product that would help us immensely.

It seems to me that SaaS- or rather, Xaas - will bring powerful solution options to the healthcare space in general and EMR/EHR area in particular. 

Posted in EMR, Reporting, PreviMed-General, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

March 17, 2009 by Atul.

It is amazing how so many physicians are being misled by the lure of “free” EMR’s.    

There are at least 2 companies in the US that are blatantly declaring how they can introduce an EMR without costing the physician or the practice anything.  

Of course, it is not free!! In both these cases, the companies have deals with the vendors and will make some commission but also charge the practice for other hidden fees for , say, training and documentation. 

More serious, though, is the long term effect of this “free” offer. Since some of the products are not certified by CCHIT (or equivalent), these physicians will not see a dime of the stimulus incentive funds released by President Obama’s administration.

And then, the nasty surprises will come when the physicians want to change their hospital affiliation or introduce some additional capabilities in their EMR’s or have some new reporting function talk to it.

Then, they will realize that free is in fact quite expensive. By then, the damage, in terms of reputation hit, downtime and practice continuity - is already done.  

We don’t mind that the physicians - especially in ambulatory, independent group practice setting -  are frugal or that they are not experts in EMR architecture - After all, we expect the specialists to be exactly that and stay current by keeping updated in the field of medicine, not IT. But we are concerned about how some in the vendor community may be exploiting this to deliver a marginalized, sub-standard system.

We at PreviMed pride ourselves at offering vendor-neutral, future-proof EMR strategies for the forward thinking physicians - And just as we don’t take any kickbacks from vendors, we also don’t offer mis-matched trouble for “free” ! 

Contact us, if you will like to know more.

Posted in EMR, Reporting, PreviMed-General, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

August 17, 2008 by Atul.

The esteemed magazine The Economist  in its August 14th issue has finally published a piece on medical tourism under a more accurate heading of “Globalisation and health care”.

Titled “Operating Profit”, the sub-title is tantalizing: “Why put up with expensive, run-of-the-mill health care at home when you can be treated just as well abroad?” 

We, here at PreviMed, felt that it is a good start although it leaves out some rather important points - such as the topic of accreditation, EU’s recent position and AMA’s comments endorsing the trend.

You can read the article here  and our comments to the article are reproduced below:

 Cost savings (associated with medical tourism) need to be considered in the context of other variables.For example:A US-based patient may choose a hospital in Costa Rica over a Chinese hospital for many reasons (higher comfort with the language/culture, shorter flights and treatment/staff/facility-related specifics) - even if the Chinese hospital represents much higher cost savings.

Posted in PreviMed-General, Uncategorized | No Comments »

July 15, 2008 by Atul.

Today’s article in the Workforce Managment, titled “Large Employers Hopping Aboard Medical Tourism” talks about how an organization - Doctors Care based in South Carolina, US - will support medical treatment overseas.

Specific procedures are : heart bypass surgeries, hysterectomies, total knee replacements, total hip replacements and spinal fusions.

Not too much new info for regular readers of this blog. The article ends with a cautionary note for patients.

 Here at PreviMed, we are focused on business-to-business. This news item is in keeping with our projections.

Posted in PreviMed-General | No Comments »