Success of electronic records lies in planning.(Practice Trends)

BOSTON -- To successfully implement an electronic health record system, set clear and specific goals and involve your clinical and administrative staff in all of the planning, Jerome H. Carter, M.D., said at a congress sponsored by the American Medical Informatics Association.

"You have to plan," said Dr. Carter, chief executive officer of NT & M Informatics, Inc., Atlanta, and the editor of "Electronic Medical Records: A Guide for Clinicians and Administrators," published by the American College of Physicians.

As many as half of complex software implementations fail, Dr. Carter said, and usually for the same reasons: vague objectives, bad planning and estimation, poor project management, insufficient involvement by senior staff, and poor vendor performance.

"This is not the time to experiment with the latest gadgets," he said.

Implementation doesn't start when the organization purchases the EHR products, but, rather, as soon as the group accepts the idea of moving from paper to an electronic system, Dr. Carter said.

The first step is to understand the current problems within the practice, to figure out how the practice should function, and identify what keeps the practice and its current system from working in an ideal way.

Potential EHR buyers should spend at least 3-4 weeks canvassing everyone in the practice to find out the problems and goals and to create a statement to capture those ideas, he said.