Semi-seriously, I try to write it from a reader neutral position. Anyone who works with EMR’s, be they office managers, physicians, medical assistants, nurses, PA’s, IT folks, or administrators, should be able to pick up some goodies.

But in the interest of efficiency, if there’s 2 folks who must “get it,” it’d be the physician champion and the main office manager (whom I termed Mother Teresa and Joseph Stalin in a prior post). Having them pulling and pushing in concert is absolutely necessary, and quite possibly sufficient, to float the boat.

Hopefully, if there are any bumps in the road, everyone in your office would be willing to listen to stuff that may help.

I agree that the end result Google products are outstanding examples of what so-called “cloud computing” can do (the online, web-based apps; your data, their servers). The pop-up shortcuts menus are a model of unobtrusiveness, for example.

My experience, however, is that Google could not. Possibly. Get a meaningful toe hold in EMR’s as we think of them, now. Getting a system to fit within an office’s idiosyncracies, as well as interfacing with the local labs, radiology groups, and hospitals takes a) intimate local knowledge, b) regular finessing, and c) both a and b over prolonged times, often 6 months of continuous political juggling or more.

Will Google be able to do that, for each office? Not the way it’s currently structured, and not for the comprehensive EMR products we’re talking about.

I’m trying to keep the material here as non-vendor and setup specific as possible, to be as widely helpful as possible.

It’s an odd feature of EMR’s that the more you use them, the more that efficient workflows and interpersonal skills become critical — the protoplasmic stuff.

Besides — let’s face it — protoplasm will beat silicon, hands down every time, for adaptability. That’s a good thing, because no matter what the EMR implementation, EMR’s are such hairy, complex beasts that there will ALWAYS be a “less than ideal fit” somewhere along the line (the software itself, it’s interface with the user, the server it runs on, the conduit to communicate to it, security and upgrades, printer drivers, etc).

Troubleshooting and customer support skills will NEVER go out of style.

But you’re always welcome to share your thoughts here.