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Select an Electronic Health Record

A best-fit solution balances patient and practitioner needs, cost, and capability.

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  • You have been tasked with selecting an electronic health record (EHR) for your institution. It will also be your job to determine which operational processes will be affected by the new application.
  • It is life and death.
    • EHR is not a typical customer information system. EHR data is extremely sensitive. A data breach is not only financially threatening for health care providers, but also it can be life threatening for patients.
  • Limited control.
    • IT is held accountable for the risks associated with siloed health data, but IT has limited ability to control the actions of the health care professionals that created the data.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Establish a definition for EHR.
    • EHR is defined differently across geographies and health practices. Get all teams speaking the same language for the selection process.
  • Buy the best for you.
    • Examine all options before buying best of breed. Keep the budget intact with a selection approach rooted in your institution’s unique requirements, not on the vendor’s overall performance.
  • EHR initiatives are about changing the DNA of the organization. Improve your processes to adhere to the EHR and not the other way around.

Impact and Result

  • Leverage Info-Tech’s comprehensive three-phase approach to EHR selection projects: assess your organization’s preparedness to go into the selection stage. Our knowledgebase is derived from thousands of hours advising with health care institutions across the globe.
  • Selection of the right tool is a critical step in delivering a safer, faster, and more meaningful experience for all players in the health care environment.
  • Enable IT to be a trusted partner in EHR selection, while health care professionals will own the requirements and be involved from the beginning.
  • Understand where the EHR market is going. Avoid paving the cow path with Info-Tech’s vendor feature-set-based approach to understanding the art of the possible for EHR.
  • Take advantage of traceable and auditable selection tools to run an effective evaluation and selection process. Be prepared to answer the retroactive question “Why this EHR?” with documentation of your selection process and outputs.

Select an Electronic Health Record Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why your organization should care about EHRs to improve patient-practitioner experience and how Info-Tech will support you as you identify and build your EHR use case.

1. Understand EHR and launch the project

Understand EHR and its core capabilities and assess project readiness.

2. Collect requirements and shortlist solutions

Embark on the requirements gathering process and understand the EHR vendor landscape.

3. Select an EHR vendor and communicate the process

Build an RFP, invite vendors for product demonstrations, and present selection decision to relevant stakeholders.

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About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

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Guided Implementation 1: Understand EHR and launch the project
  • Call 1: Define EHR.
  • Call 2: Define the scope of the selection project.
  • Call 3: Review the four defining elements of the EHR framework as well as the enabling elements.
  • Call 4: Determine your EHR best-fit use case.
  • Call 5: Examine whether your team is ready to proceed with an EHR selection.

Guided Implementation 2: Collect requirements and shortlist solutions
  • Call 1: Discuss the critical stage gates for your organization.
  • Call 2: Review an example EHR selection roadmap.
  • Call 3: Understand the three-step requirements gathering process (elicitation, analysis, validation).
  • Call 4: Establish metrics for the selection project.
  • Call 5: Review major players in the EHR vendor landscape.
  • Call 6: Understand how to leverage SoftwareReviews to guide selection decisions.

Guided Implementation 3: Select an EHR vendor and communicate the process
  • Call 1: Define your selection framework.
  • Call 2: Create an RFP.
  • Call 3: Establish vendor evaluation criteria.
  • Call 4: Prepare demo scripts.
  • Call 5: Invite top-performing vendors for demonstrations.
  • Call 6: Validate selection decision.
  • Call 7: Plan for communicating the EHR selection to the organization.

Author

Samuel Leese

Contributors

  • Steve Eidemiller, Lead Enterprise Architect, Children’s Minnesota
  • Additional anonymous contributors
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