Hospital EMR Crashes and Burns Because Community Docs Hate It

While we may argue over the stats — is it 30 percent, 40 percent, even 50 percent? — everyone knows that the failure rates for hospital EMR installations are frighteningly high. So it never hurts to look at specific cases and see if we can avoid that particular train wreck.

So here you have it. Courtesy of medical informaticist Brian Martin, we have a compelling tale of a $50 million EMR installation that went belly-up largely because the hospital didn’t “get” the needs of its 1100+ community-based physicians.  That’s $100,000 per bed, or if you prefer, $50,000 per staff physician, he notes. Ouch.

Since Martin tells the tale so well, I’ll turn the story over to him...