In a recent blog post, Paul Levy, former CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, likened hospitals' relationship with electronic health record company Epic to Stockhom Syndrome, in which "hostages express empathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them."
Epic, which has the largest market share of all health information systems, continues to grow its client base while refusing to integrate with other systems, explains Mr. Levy. Because of its tight hold on its hospital clients, these hospitals overlook integration issues as well as the high costs required to implement the systems — a condition he likens to Stockholm Syndrome.
Mr. Levy quotes a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine which states, "Diverse functionality needn't reside within single EHR systems, and there's a clear path toward better, safer, cheaper and nimbler tools for managing healthcare's complex tasks."
He closes his post by pointing to the major risk Epic's market dominance paired with tight controls creates:
Epic, which has the largest market share of all health information systems, continues to grow its client base while refusing to integrate with other systems, explains Mr. Levy. Because of its tight hold on its hospital clients, these hospitals overlook integration issues as well as the high costs required to implement the systems — a condition he likens to Stockholm Syndrome.
Mr. Levy quotes a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine which states, "Diverse functionality needn't reside within single EHR systems, and there's a clear path toward better, safer, cheaper and nimbler tools for managing healthcare's complex tasks."
He closes his post by pointing to the major risk Epic's market dominance paired with tight controls creates:
Now that it controls this big a piece of the American market--paid for by federal appropriations--if something ever goes wrong (e.g., a coding or decision support error that results in harm to patients), you can expect a bunch of Congressional committees to come down on the firm like a ton of bricks… People will ask: "Isn't an EMR as much of a medical device as the ones regulated by the FDA? …Shouldn't EMRs be regulated by the federal government for that reason, too? How did this firm get such a big share of such a critical market with no government review?"