Miami Children's Hospital has announced a partnership with electronic health record vendor HealthFusion to offer a private-labeled EHR to pediatricians throughout MCH's service region and beyond. The cloud-based system will be based on HealthFusion's MediTouch platform and will be available for a monthly fee to physicians.
Ed Martinez, senior vice president and CIO of MCH, believes the new branded EHR will have a strong appeal for physicians. Because it is hosted in the cloud, the system will be easy and cost-effective to implement, and it has an iPad-friendly interface as well as desktop functionality, giving physicians their choice of device. "That's one of the main advantages — it's simple, quick to learn and quick to install," says Mr. Martinez.
The EHR will also enable physicians to interface directly with the hospital's system and receive patient updates in real time. "So if a child comes to the emergency department and receives care, the corresponding information will be shared quickly," says Mr. Martinez. Additionally, the EHR has been certified for meaningful use stage 2, providing participating physicians the opportunity to attest and collect incentive funds to offset the monthly fee.
"More importantly, however, physicians respect the name [MCH] and recognize we're going to stand behind the product," says Mr. Martinez. "This will get more physicians to use it, if it's supported by Miami Children’s."
The ultimate goal of the partnership is to increase EHR adoption among MCH's affiliated physicians by overcoming some of the traditional barriers. Many EHR systems currently on the market are not built for use in a small physician office, where workflows and available resources differ drastically from hospitals'. "Some of the systems that are hospital-based don't really want to service the 'onesie-twosie' doctors," says Sol Lizerbram, DO, the cofounder and chairman of HealthFusion, as these large, complicated systems are not the best fits for these smaller physician practices. "The installation and training processes at these small practices are totally different," he says, "and most of the large EHR companies are not geared for it."
The MCH-branded EHR will allow the physicians to "have a system geared toward them and the size of their office, that still has interoperability with the hospital," says Dr. Lizerbram.
The partnership between MCH and HealthFusion is one of the first of its kind. "We think this is going to be a new trend in the industry," says Dr. Lizerbram. "There is a growing frustration over the lack of interoperability between disparate systems in the community and in the hospitals. We believe this is the beginning of a rapidly progressing trend to bring community physicians and hospitals closer from both a technology and a quality standpoint," he says. "We're going to keep hearing about partnerships like this."
Within the next year, Mr. Martinez hopes to have between 500 and 600 providers live on the system. He is also looking to expand the offering internationally, as MCH often communicates with primary care physicians and other providers in Latin America.
"This is an exciting time for us," says Mr. Martinez. "This was the best option for us and the providers we work with," he says, and will allow MCH to further their mission of providing coordinated care to all patients. The branded EHR is a "clean and attractive" solution to lackluster EHR adoption in the region, he says, and is a solution that "most physicians will embrace and ask, 'Why haven't we had this before?'"
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