How cloud-based EHRs make the revolutionary feel evolutionary

Special contribution by Richard Upton

The list of challenges faced by independent physicians is growing longer by the day. The intrusive confusion over the adoption of clinical and business process changes taking place within "healthcare technology" has triggered a resistance by independent physicians that borders on a fight-or-flight level of anxiety.

Yet, while the healthcare sector as a whole already has shown its readiness to adopt new technology as a way to reduce costs, enhance underperforming clinical outcomes, improve patient relationships, connect communications, and increase profitability, independent physicians persistently resist the transition from paper-based systems to new technology and want to retain their independence.

Today, independent physicians find that the cost of treating patients and managing their clinical and business operations through paper-based systems is no longer sufficiently covered by dwindling reimbursements and payment schedules. They are increasingly experiencing the incremental burden of compounding costs for supplies: copying, scanning, printing, shredding, faxing, managing records, storing records, documenting, filing, along with the labor, regeneration, discovery, patient communications, regulatory filings, postage, retrieval, and increased staff support.

Why, then, aren't physicians everywhere racing to embrace the proven new technology? It may be that some are simply unaware of its rapid, ongoing evolution and the new affordability that cloud-based solutions offer. In addition, physicians may not have adequately considered the disastrous long-term price of sticking with paper.

For the physicians who desire to remain independent, doing so can only be achieved by owning and controlling the data of their business. In today's contemporary technology-driven architecture, a paper-based system cannot achieve this objective.

Fortunately, the days have quickly come to an end when the only options available to small independent physician practices are provided by vendor solutions carrying jaw-dropping prices or others promoting incomplete solutions, often based on server-site and software systems that can handle certain functions, but not comprehensive clinical and business work flow requirements.

Perceptions of unaffordability and innovation limitations among electronic health record (EHR) platforms and systems available to independent and small group practices are among the greatest fallacies in healthcare today. The advancements in new cloud-based technology have opened an entirely new world of opportunity and interconnectivity to everyone in the healthcare arena for improved data sharing, security, and enhanced access to applications and data via any network device, anywhere, anytime and with affordability in ways that promise to meet the evolving needs of both doctors and patients for years to come.

With cloud-based systems as the true national standard, hospitals, and medical practices of any size--whether on our border with Mexico or in the middle of Manhattan--could log onto the Internet and access patient records in real time with life-saving consequences.

The emerging, new EHR platforms offer massive advantages over both paper and the outdated, server-based solutions that continue to be proffered by some of the top vendors in healthcare. The cost of these systems, moreover, can be as little as $10,000 a year per billing provider. With the right approach, in fact, a single physician can afford comprehensive and fully integrated all-in-one, state-of-the-industry EHR, practice management (PM), and patient health record (PHR) systems that are equal or superior to those of the largest medical centers and hospitals in the country.

Many Americans think healthcare reform is synonymous with revolutionizing care processes. But reform is merely a strategy in service of a larger and nobler end in improving people's health. This cannot happen without revolutionary change, which tends to be unsettling or even frightening.

The best way to ease this transition, however, is to make revolutionary change feel evolutionary. In the case of EHR platforms, one way to accomplish this is to stop emphasizing market share and to start focusing on what I call share of solution. This is the need for everyone to do what they can to play a constructive collaborative role in actually solving our healthcare problems. Because cloud-based data are always just a click away from any network device, they can be made accessible to older EHR technology.

Realistically, however, one cannot expect the incumbent vendors to crack open their silos without pressure. I believe this pressure is coming. Patients are clamoring for easy access to their medical records and are tired of hearing horror stories about record-keeping mistakes. Physicians continue to fight for their independence and are searching for alternatives to the status quo. Government officials are intent on saving a healthcare system that, in many respects, is teetering on the brink.

In the end, healthcare is all about people. And when it comes to the nation's backward and inefficient legacy systems, the people are ready for evolutionary change.

Editor's note: Richard Upton is president of UPTONGROUP, a Richmond, Va.-based consultancy.