Successfully Choosing Your EMR: 15 Crucial Decisions [Paperback]

Arthur Gasch (Author), Betty Gasch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2010 | ISBN-10: 1444332147 | ISBN-13: 978-1444332148 | Edition: 1

The Electronic Medical Record (EMR) - is the essential underpinning of any significant healthcare reform and is the more comprehensive record than the Electronic Health Record (EHR). This book clarifies the Crucial Decisions that result in successful EMR adoption and avoidance of expensive EMR mistakes. It provides timely insight in leveraging ARRA/HiTech, Meaningful Use, Stark Safe Harbor, CPOE and PQRI incentives and understanding current HITSP, HL7, ASTM, ELINCS and other interoperability standards.

This book provides practical guidance on:

• Evaluating EMR ease-of-use
• Determining In-office vs. Web-based vs. Blended EMR deployment
• Deciding which user-interface approach to adopt
• Understanding structured vs. unstructured charting approaches
• Assessing EMR developer stability
• Obtaining legal advice about RFIs, RFPs and contract negotiations

"The federal government has set aside significant incentives for physicians to adopt and implement electronic medical record systems. As providers across the country seek out various health IT tools and capabilities, this book serves as a remarkably useful, step-by-step guide for successfully deploying an EMR system. This kind of information will be imperative as we bring our health system into the 21st century."
—Newt Gingrich, Founder of The Center for Health Transformation, Former Speaker of the House, USA

Also endorsed by: Rep. Rush Holt (D NJ), Richard Dick, Ph.D. & Radu Kramer, M.D.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is a timely text for any and all office practice managers who are considering obtaining an EHR or upgrading their current system. Then, too, our physician owners of their practice may choose to peek at this text as well. (Tennessee Medicine, May 2010)

Review

"The federal government has set aside significant incentives for physicians to adopt and implement electronic medical record systems. As providers across the country seek out various health IT tools and capabilities, this book serves as a remarkably useful, step-by-step guide for successfully deploying an EMR system. This kind of information will be imperative as we bring our health system into the 21st century."
—Newt Gingrich, Founder of The Center for Health Transformation, Former Speaker of the House

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (April 6, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1444332147
• ISBN-13: 978-1444332148
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,382,496 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Arthur Gasch founded Medical Strategic Planning (MSP) in 1992 to provide verifiable and actionable medical business intelligence on medical devices and information systems. Previously he was Manager of Market Research with Siemens, and held field management positions at Spacelabs and American Optical, but his career in medical started at Hewlett Packard in 1971. While attending college, Arthur co-oped as a Student Engineer at a military electronics firm located in Evandale, OH, after which he moved to Chicago.

Arthur has been publisher and contributing editor to the Industry Alert newsletter for 12 years, and was contributing editor for 14 years for the Biomedical Business & Technology newsletter. He was one of many contributors to the book, ICU 2010 - published in 1999 based on a symposium held at Texas A&M. Arthur has presented in sessions at AHIMA, MGMA, AGA and World Congress conferences, and was Moderator of the EMR panel at the 2009 6th Annual NJ Biotech Symposium for United Nation Trade Consuls.

Arthur is the technical architect of the MSP EHR Selector, a web-based, interactive, critically-vetted resource, conceived by Dr. Caroline Samuels, to help physicians compare and select EMR products that met their practice needs and budgets. This resource has helped hundreds of physician practices and some well-known EMR Consultants, find EMR products and successfully deploy EMR solutions. The Selector supports 46 practice specialties, supports EMRs in several care settings, offering up to 700 user-asertable features - including: Meaningful Use, expanded HIPAA features, PQRI and other Quality measures, CPM and PHR integration and interoperability, and many more. It provides novel legal alerts and incorporates the latest KLAS Research EMR Vendor product ratings.

Arthur is also the web-architect and collaborator with Bill Andrew, HIMSS's first Lifetime Member and now "Senior" VP of MSP EMR Business Unit, of the MSP/Andrew EHR Benchmark, a work now in its 13th version. The Benchmark catalogs the capabilities of EMR products and their compliance with industry EMR standards and catalogs over 250,000 features of various EMR products. Both of these products and the insights from 13 years of monitoring EMR solutions, provided insights for the book.


Arthur and wife Betty Gasch, RN, BSN (co-author of the Book) are also senior executives at MSP. Daughter Karen, manages MSP publications, son Scott is a programmer at Google, daughter-in-law Lynn is a programmer at Microsoft and grandson Alex is a bundle of joy and energy. The family is all nurses, geeks and artists.

Arthur enjoys grandkids, snorkeling, Sudoku, fishing, hiking and used to enjoy Chess. Problem is son Scott, a Chess program has written a program that I can't beat, but it's OK - he can't beat it either!

Any comments and questions about the book are most welcome. Email is [e-mail].

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical information, May 21, 2010

By 

C. Cook "ccookdo" (DFW, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Successfully Choosing Your EMR: 15 Crucial Decisions (Paperback)

I have read no fewer than five books on EMR and this one has the best practical discussion of your choices. It does not bother to start with an explanation of what EMR is. You should know that already. This book goes into the hard decisions and brings up important considerations that are not covered in the other books I read. This should NOT be the first book on EMR you read, but you better read it before you spend the thousands of dollars and time implementing a solution.