There are a couple of major upsides I can see of using a unified EHR within a single corporate structure. All the patient's records would be available to everyone immediately. Wouldn't it be nice, Jon, if the surgeon had your ERCP results the same moment you did the procedure rather than having to ask for them, get them and import them? Or if cardiology notes lived seamlessly in their proper chronological place in the chart, and not as an imported PDF file under a separate tab? Or if the current medication list was available to everyone, and changes made by one provider were instantly flagged for all to see?
Secondly, I would love to pass the IT headaches off on to the hospital. Let them worry about servers, networking, backups, upgrades, wireless access, UPS's, printers and everything else that irritates on a nearly daily basis. I could get back to medicine.
I love my independence, and would not trade it to be a slave for Banner for anything. But, if I started that way, I could see a lot of upside to using an admittedly lesser EHR.
Last edited by dgrauman; 12/18/2010 5:52 PM.
