It's really a mess right now at emrupdate.com. Top posters, such as Al Borges, M.D., are being banished from the website, for talking too much about the negative aspects of CCHIT.
Also, it has come out that a representative of NextGen has been given Moderator status, on this supposedly impartial website, and many members are angry.
Physicians wonder if the information they receive there is being influenced by a pro-CCHIT EMR vendor. Competing vendors wonder if NextGen is getting preferential treatment. When they try to post about their angry feelings, however, their posts are being deleted by the Moderators.
For those that don't know, emrupdate.com has been, up to now, has been considered one of the top websites for unbiased information about various Electronic Medical Records and related issues, such as Speech Recognition, "Pay for Performance", and CCHIT certification.
For years, Al Borges, M.D. (alborg) has been one of the top ten posters at emrupdate.com. He is an oncologist who designed his own EMR, and has made available for public download, free of charge.
Yesterday, one of the moderators (Lowell Kleinman, M.D.) singled Al out for discipline, in the guise of a supposedly "Friendly Request", which was actually a public rebuke (this was basically admitted, later in the thread). He was told that his "rants have gone overboard and they hijack threads". Al requested to have the conversation moved to the "Off Topic" portion of the forum, instead of posting it at the top of the EMR Forum, like it was legitimate news.
A denial of his request came from Moderator/NextGen rep, Bob Larson:
“Reasonable request politely made - denied with prejudice. Fun ensues. Film at eleven.”
Al was justifiably angry, and reacted angrily. One of the main Moderators of the site, Nick Harrington, posted a threat of banishment, if Al didn't abide by "every word" of Lowell's "Friendly Request".
Nick further said: "Al, your continued anti-CCHIT tirade paints you as... Not balanced, not a reasonable poster and ultimately a prime candidate for a sojourn sans membership.
It is not clear what happened next. Al was apparently banned before he could post again publicly. I tried to look up his user profile, and got the message that no such user exists anymore at EMRupdate.com.
There's a lot of anger at the way Al was treated, and his banishment has brought into focus the fact that one of the moderators involved in the thread that cost him his membership, was this selfsame vendor/Moderator, Bob Larson.
This has caused physicians and other vendors to question how independent emrupdate.com really is. However, those posting their concerns are finding their posts banished. Here is one example, from a competing vendor, President of eMedRec:
Brendon Holt, President, eMedRec
This was a bit surprissing to me. What that says is a EMR Vendors Employee is moderating a site that is about EMR. I cannot imagine myself even after 2000 posts and being very much in the middle moderating, I am to involved in the industry not to use poor judgement at times.
Very interesting. So if a customer buys EMR vendor product and moderator likes this vendors product and a physician, office manager or CEO of practice posts:
"My Practice got screwed on 1.5 Million Dollars on EMR XYZ product" and backs it up, can this moderator decide a better title is:
"Practice having dificulties with implemenation on EMR XYZ".
That is not as helpful as I spent 1.5 million dollars and wish I had it back. This is not as helpful to end users to know. This is not what the end user said.
This to me is a very interesting position. Vendors as members of a forum, understood, vendors as the ones who can edit and control content, not so understood.
My 2 cents on this subject.
Nick's reply:
Nick Harrington, Head Moderator, emrupdate.com
“Bob Larsen is an excellent choice of moderator and has made very clear (and so proved) that he will not interfer within a subject that concerns NextGen. That's good enough for me and should be formost of the posters here.
There is no story here and no further discussion of who should be or shouldn't be a moderator.
Thread closed.
Got a problem? Take it to another forum buddy.”
This exchange was moved to the "Off Topic" forum. Dr. Borges' public rebuke remains on the front page of the "Discussion Forum for Electronic Medical Records Software."
