From the Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost Council meeting

We tweet, friend, post, text and chat- we are enthralled by electronic communication. So why is it so difficult for health care consumers and providers to grasp the value of EMR: Electronic Medical Records? At yesterday’s Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost Council meeting the Cost Containment Committee indicated that they would be recommending that the Commonwealth provide technical assistance to providers as they move to adopt EMR. The Committee should also recommend that the Commonwealth launch a communications campaign to help educate providers and their patients about the significant impact EMR can have on the quality of care.

Many providers and patients are yet to be convinced. Providers are concerned the conversion to EMR will prove costly in time and money. Patients fear that their care will become impersonal when in fact the opposite is true. There is research aplenty to document improvement in the quality of care- this months Governing magazine presents a case study in West Virginia. Anecdotally, I can say that my provider Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates (HVMA) - one of the early adopters of EMR- proves the value of EMR to me on a regular basis. HVMA calls me to remind me it is time to schedule my annual mammogram. My son’s pediatrician is able to access Joe’s records for the myriad of specialists he sees. In the last 5 years I have seen a dramatic increase in the amount of time docs can spend with me and my sons- because of the implementation of EMR.

Both the federal government and the Commonwealth are pouring significant resources into EMR. Implementation of EMR can only succeed in meeting its intended goal of reducing cost if the public knows that it will also improve quality. The Roadmap to Cost Containment should include recommendations for a state wide public awareness campaign and then we can all tweet, post, text and chat- about EMR!

---Lauren Louison is a Senior Vice President at Solomon McCown & Company. She can be reached by email at llouison@solomonmccown.com.