6. Affordability

This is perhaps most appealing part of latest electronic medical record technology. Every business wants to save money while at same time adopting time-saving technology. Because electronic medical record software uses online technology, much of set up costs and overhead are eliminated and reduced to monthly usage fees.

7. Infrastructure

Part of money-saving nature of electronic medical record technology is elimination of IT infrastructure and streamlining of multiple databases. The infrastructure is simplified into one online database, even for multiple offices.

8. Versatility

I have already mentioned multiple office management with electronic medical record software, but there is much more to this software than meets eye. Electronic medical record software stores medical transcription SOAP notes and medical codes. It allows multiple users. It also connects users to personal and online support sources.

9. Efficiency

We have almost made it full circle in our discussion of benefits of having an electronic medical record. But efficiency is not same as speed. Efficiency takes all of duties involved in medical record and medical office management divided by time and money. Electronic medical record software can increase numerators and decrease denominators. Businesses often ask about bottom line. Well, math says it all.

10. Manageability

The benefits of an electronic medical record may sound wonderful, but there is one more question to ask: Is it user friendly? When adopting new technology, remember that master needs to ride in saddle, not horse. Some technology requires so much attention that a business owner may be worried that he or she is now employed by new technology and not other way around. Electronic medical record software works for businesses.

A word of advice: in any given search engine there are millions of indexed pages that will appear as relevant results to a search for “electronic medical record”, or “EMR”. Use these benefits as search sifters, to identify right electronic medical record software to work for your practice.

2) Are you planning to manage project, and project team(s), yourself? And/or are you planning to “outsource” part to all of management of your project? What are costs in terms of time, effort and money for each of these alternatives? Which of these alternatives has minimum risks to successful completion of your application development project?, These are *important* considerations as failing to complete development of your application(s) may make pursuing this option very costly!

3) What are costs – time, effort and/or money – to also develop documentation and training (if applicable) for your application(s)?

4) How do you plan to support developed application(s)? By training “in house” staff to support it? And/or engaging external developers and/or support staff?

5) How do you plan to handle maintenance on this new application(s)? Do you have source code? Do you plan to handle future maintenance yourself / “in house”? and/or Are you going to engage original development team (assuming they are willing and available) to make any future additions and/or changes to your system(s)? If so have you negotiated / “locked in” a rate for these future maintenance efforts?

Etc. Etc.

Now, let us look at “Buy” option.

Some of advantages of “Buy” option include:

1) The time to get a package solution implemented such that you may start using it and reaping corresponding benefits for your business is typically quicker than that for building application “from scratch”.

2) The initial purchase price of a software package, although it may be considerable, is often less than (initial) custom development costs.

3) The software vendor may deliver regular maintenance upgrades to software package, including a number of “bug fixes” and/or enhancements, which you may receive for a “fixed maintenance fee” such that you do not have to bear costs of all these “bug fixes” and enhancements alone.

Some of disadvantages of “Buy” option include:

1) A COTS package may not satisfy all your business requirements/needs and may not fit your specific business processes well “out of box”. The software vendor may or may not be willing and able to modify package to better fit your business requirements and/or processes and even if so, this may be costly.

2) A software package may be less able to quickly adapt to changes in your business needs and/or processes. You may have to wait for vendor’s next maintenance release to get changes you want, or you may have to pay vendor to make these changes specifically just for you and wait for them, or they may not be willing (and/or able) to make these changes to their software package for you at all.

Briefly here are also just a few of additional factors that, IMHO, you may want to consider in evaluating / selecting a package solution(s), as part of your “Buy options”, including:

1) What is additional time and cost, if it is even possible / an option, to modify package to satisfy your current requirements/needs? A “general rule of thumb” I have used over years is that … If you have to modify 50% or more of “code” to make it meet your needs, then you are probably better off re-writing it “from scratch”, you know?

2) Is it maintainable? Meaning, will you, vendor, and/or developers you engage be able to modify package to meet any changes in your current and/or future requirements/needs? If not, then this package may become “shelfware” should your needs change at some point, you know?

3) How well does it integrate and/or “play well” with other applications in your overall application architecture? If it does not “interface nicely” with other applications in your overall application architecture and it will need to, then you may find that you will need to have these interfaces custom developed. Therefore, you should also consider development of these interfaces in “Total cost of ownership” of this package, right?

4) What kinds of documentation, training and support are available? And how good are they? Bottom line … a package you and/or your staff can’t use isn’t worth much now is it?

Etc. Etc.

Granted, again, there is a lot more to both a good formal “Buy vs. Build” analysis and/or Software Selection process, as discussed above, but …

Once you have narrowed it down to top “scoring” candidate COTS software packages from your Software Selection process, this along with your assessment of advantages, disadvantages and costs of “Buy” vs. “Build” alternative, as discussed above, will allow you to make a good informed decision about which solution is better for you and your business, namely to “Build” or “Buy”, in this case, right?

I hope that discussions herein will at least help everyone see value (and potential time, effort and money savings) of performing a “Buy vs. Build” analysis and/or a Software Selection process “up front” vs. ending up with something that either doesn’t meet your (short- and/or long-term) needs and/or is too costly to maintain.

If you have any further questions regarding and/or would like further assistance with any of this, please feel free to contact us via contact information available below.

I hope this all helps you all and Have a Great Day! :)

- Michael S. DeVries