Portability of information between different EMR systems

One of the frequently recurring questions is that of portability of information between different EMR systems. Physicians have a concern that should they select a specific EMR system, they will be tied to that system and be unable to transfer that data to another system should the vendor go out of business or should they just want to move to a different system.

The concern is well founded. Currently there is no approved data standard and accepted methodology for clinical information to be transferred between different systems. Remember that the purchase of the software is just a fraction of the investment into an EMR. A much greater investment is the staff and physician time - those hundreds of hours - that are invested in the input of data over a course of months and years. This investment is difficult to quantify, but it is significant.

As a physician, how important is portability of data between systems? Is this a make or break decision when you are selecting an EMR vendor?

To post your comments, please click on the 'Comments' link below.

Comments

[Scot Mountain]

Every vendor I have spoken to has said how easy this should be to do - it should simply be a matter of mapping the fields in one database to another. Our current vendor did import demographic data from our old billing and scheduling system into their full EMR system, with only a couple of minor glitches.

However, I am not aware of anyone that has transferred information from a full EMR system, including patient notes, scanned documents, etc. to another one. I would be interested to know if others have experience with this, and if so, how smoothly the transition went. I suspect it might not be as smooth as I have been lead to believe, especially if you are the first clinic requesting transport of data from a specfic system to another (once it has been done a first time, it should be easy to repeat).

[Fred Freedman]

Scott
I think the short answer is that it is not transferable. Simple demographics like age, sex are easilly transported to other systems because the data fields are quite standard.
MacMedical, for instance, can NOT import appointment data. So if we are considering switching to MacMedical, they have told us we need to continue to run our old system for several weeks just so we can keep our appointments straight...and appointments are fairly easy.
With EMR consider virtually all the data lost.
That is why the Ministry's of Health (who else could do this?) should be mandating ALL approved systems to be required to provide the tools to convert their databases (something like holding the data in escroe).
All EMRs should be able to transfer basic essentials to each other.
You are right. As it stands, once you purchase a software package your are virtually locked in for your professional life. The enormity of any changing would be unmanageable.

[Karen Kuhn]

The POSP Program in Alberta is creating a standard for this. I believe it will be part of their 2005 conformance requirements for EMR's in Alberta.

Allan if you want more information let me know and I can forward you to a POSP contact.

K

[John Fernandes]

Agree. POSP in Alberta has addressed the issue of portability. The problem is magnified when you consider that out of 12 EMR vendors in a Province - only 50% of them (a generous estimate) will be "alive and well" 10 years from now.
There is also no provision for the EMR vendor to "stick around" to assist you with a transition after they go belly up. This is probably why "open source" coding is probably a requirement.
This is such an issue, that I've been unable to use my EMR out of concern for my data. Although I have a good and fully functional EMR....I'm not going to use it....we're going to stick with paper until these issues are resolved.

J.