I came across an interesting paper from last year from an AHIMA group that did a good job of discussing the intersection between electronic health records and overall records and document management. The paper is entitled Enterprise Content and Records Management for Healthcare.
What I particularly liked about the paper is the graphic on the left, because it illustrates for me the challenge that we are likely to face as the process of certifying electronic health records providers proceeds as part of the Obama Administration stimulus project.
(See previous post, What I Know So Far About EHR and EMR and ECM)
I think a key issue here for document solution providers is how the certification process will work across the concentric circles in the diagram. The EHR provider certification process likely to be conducted by CCHIT will likely be focused on the inside two circles. Given the decentralized and balkanized current nature of healthcare automation, many document management solutions currently play in the outer ring.
So my question -- the same one I raised in my earlier post -- is how the product certification process will manage the connection points between the three rings -- and especially the outer ring. My fear -- and I'd welcome comments on whether this is unfounded or not -- is that many "document management" solutions may be crowded out by the stimulus money or not even on the table because the solutions are not on the certification list.
Is my fear misplaced?
We have a group on InformationZen for those interested in this issue. All are welcome -- just sign up on Zen and request admission to the group.
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