Medical Society of the State of New York (MSSNY) evaluating EHRs for its members


Cudos to Liz,Ron and Tom for helping the committee with this project.
Stay tuned for the final list of EHR vendors to published. SV


MSSNYe-news
September 21st, 2007

Weekly Update for New York State Physicians
Volume 7, Number 37

On another front, the HIT Committee chaired by Drs. Zeb Taintor and Sal Volpe and staffed by Liz Dears and Ron Pucherelli, the impossible has been conquered. After a year of an intense interviewing process of electronic health record (EHR) firms, they have almost completed their findings. After investigating and interviewing only CCHIT-qualified vendors with a 30-page questionnaire regarding stability, reliability, accessibility and ease-of-use, they are narrowing down the list. They are identifying which vendors are best suited to our needs, be it a large, high-volume practices or one more finely tuned to solo practices, and every type in between. We expect to publish the finding shortly.

In the meantime, Co-Chair Dr. Volpe recommends that physicians check out ePrescribing. They offer free software that will help reduce drug interactions.

Robert B. Goldberg, DO
President

MSSNY’s Council Meeting Involved Important Actions and Awards
At its September 20 meeting in Lake Success – with satellite connections to Albany, Buffalo and Syracuse – MSSNY Council took the following actions:


* Authorized MSSNY staff to negotiate discount fees for MSSNY members with vendors of electronic medical records (EMR), with contract provisions preventing the endorsed vendors from granting similar or lower discounts to non-MSSNY members. The approved vendors will be announced shortly. The chosen vendors are to include two that specialize in servicing large practices and have the capability of connecting EMRs to hospitals, and the remainder are to cater to small and medium-sized practices. All will provide software that has a practice management component, is culturally sensitive and is CCHIT-certified.



* The Council vote was preceded by a brief update from MSSNY Executive Vice President Rick Abrams of MSSNY’s $9M health information technology (HIT) grant activities and a presentation by MSSNY’s HIT Task Force chairs, Zebulon Taintor, MD, and Salvatore Volpe, MD, who described the task force’s years of work and explained the importance of HIT for reducing medical errors and practice overhead. Mr. Abrams reported that MSSNY was awaiting DOH approval to announce its $4.6M grants to practices in six NYS regions. Dr. Volpe reported that he was able to recover the cost of his EMR and e-prescribing systems with reduced overhead expenses within a year and that he had a $30,000 surplus the following year.


MSSNY eNews