At a recent Medical Group Management Association conference in Las Vegas, Health Tech Zone recently asked several EHR vendors what they plan to work on in the gap between Meaningful Use and ICD-10.
A few of the things that medical software vendors said they would do included:
1) Addressing customer-requested enhancements
"Despite its benefits, MU has taken up the vast majority of development bandwidth, first in a rush to incorporate functionalities and later to optimize them. It's not clear who struggles more with this pace of change — the EHR vendors or their clients. One thing is certain — the delays have presented an opportunity to focus anew on customer-requested enhancements."
2) Tackling usability
"It’s no secret that many physicians are dissatisfied with their EHRs. This has been confirmed by many studies, most recently one by the RAND Corporation. It found that EHRs worsen physicians' satisfaction in areas such as increased time performing data entry, interference with face-to-face care, interfaces that don't match work flow, poor health information exchange and a mismatch between MU and clinical practice — all of which may adversely affect patient care."
3) Improving patient engagement capabilities
"Now that the baseline functionalities have been built and the rush toward MU certification has passed, vendors are doubling down on their offerings for patient engagement. Some are beefing up web portals. Some are adding or improving functions to make them more patient-friendly, such as the ability to schedule appointments electronically, refill prescriptions, access and update their information and pay bills."
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