Selecting an EMR Software Solution

"Research suggests that organizations that invest in a methodical
selection process significantly reduce the risk of common issues,
such as lack of critical software functionality, lack of clinician buy-in,
missed deadlines, budget overages, and the failure to achieve
business goals."

The selection of electronic medical record (EMR/EHR) or other
enterprise application software is one of the most important decisions
a health care organization will make. New application software that is
responsible for clinical, patient, operational, and financial information
will have a huge impact on the organization and its clinicians.
Besides the financial investment, which is likely to be in the hundreds
of thousands or millions of dollars, a well-implemented system will
change workflow (business processes) of physicians, nurses,
ancillary staff, and management. With an implementation timeline
that typically stretches over 18 to 24 months for an enterprise system
and a useful system life that can span 7 to 15 years, the collective
impact on an organization is far from trivial. This is why it is so
important to make sure the decisions about selecting an enterprise
system are made carefully.
A disciplined approach can provide objective
analysis regarding the differences between solutions and their fit to
your organization’s requirements and can help determine the
feasibility of various options. It aids in separating the emotion from
the real substance of a solution to ensure that sound decisions will
be made. A reasonable rule of thumb for this selection process is to
budget 10%-20% of the cost of the implementation to selecting the
solution. This approach is geared toward system selection in larger
health care organizations. However, the approach can be tailored to
fit smaller organizations by focusing on a smaller vendor pool. The
approach is flexible and components of it may occur in parallel during
the selection effort. Advanced practitioners leading system selection
efforts can fine-tune the approach based on the organization’s
decision-making style and understanding of how much information is
needed to make decisions. Variables that will influence decision
making include organizational risk tolerance, cost, and time to
market.


The software selection process is trying to answer five basic
questions for your organization:
1. Define requirements — “What do we need? What do we
want?”
In order to identify and evaluate appropriate solutions, you must have
an understanding of what your needs and wants are. Functions and
features of sexy technology are irrelevant if they have no bearing on
the business issues or objectives you are trying to address.
2. Identify constraints — “What do we already have?”
In a perfect world, you get to start with a clean slate and no baggage
to carry. Oftentimes, however, we are not afforded the opportunity to
start from scratch. Existing investments in hardware, software, or
skills may have to be leveraged because the investment capital
simply is not available to discard existing assets.
3. Evaluate options — “What can we get?”
There is usually more than one category of solutions to a problem
and, frequently, more than one choice within a solution category.
Identifying and prioritizing requirements and constraints help to
narrow the seemingly endless number of choices.
4. Develop budget and plan — “What will it cost, who will do it,
how will it be done, and how long will it take?”
The goal of a software selection process is not just to pick a solution.
That is only a part of it. The second major reason for going through
the selection process is to understand the costs, the players, the
process, and the time frames involved in the implementation. It
should not always be a foregone conclusion that just because the
solution is identified, it is worth making the investment. It’s important
to remember that the technology solution is only a part of the total
cost involved in an implementation project. Expenses related to
people (training and external resource utilization) and processes
(process design or process improvement) can oftentimes cost more
than the technology itself.
5. Evaluate benefit — “What are we going to get for this
investment?”
The other major reason for going through a software selection process
is to make sure there is justification for making the investment. In
other words, define your criteria for success, define how you will
measure and monitor success, and then perform the measurement.
If you don’t define ahead of time what you are expecting to get in
return for the investment, how will you know it was worthwhile?
The following steps can guide an organization through the process of
making sure the solution it selects is the right one.

Build the business case
The first and perhaps the most important step in the process is to
secure full support from all the stakeholders in the organization in
order to understand organizational readiness. Stakeholders include
individuals inside and outside the organization who are responsible
for strategic, medical practice, clinical, operational, and financial
functions. Without proper support from the community of users, a
project of this magnitude is likely to be compromised. There must be
clarification, understanding, agreement, and alignment of
organizational objectives and priorities.
The business case obviously needs the support of tangible goals and
true business issues (clinical and non-clinical) that will be addressed
by the final solution.
We provide both web based EMR software and client-server based EMR software solutions.

Ref:
http://www.wipfli.com/resources/images/8658.pdf