Epic - The Best Way to Run Your Company...Into the Ground
By Dan
How would you like to drive your Healthcare organization into bankruptcy?
Beckers Hospital Review reported in their May 23rd, 2016 edition of the Hospital CFO Report that 8 hospitals' finances were hurt by EHR costs.
This is just one article, but I also expressed concern over our Department of Defense and our Veterans' Administration spending $11 billion and $5 billion respectively on a Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) EHR system where their final three considerations were
- Epic
- Cerner
- VistA
Given the cost and many doctor’s preference for VistA, it seemed wiser to many people to choose VistA. It was widely used. VistA was developed in-house by and for the VA. And this would avoid handing ownership of our sensitive government information to outside businesses. Information that should be seen only by people working for the government with security clearances.
And then there is the ungodly cost.
Going with Epic or Cerner seemed financially foolish as the VA had already been considering shutting down some hospitals to save money. Wouldn’t it be wiser to spend the $5 billion on care of veterans instead of buying another EHR solution when they already had an excellent solution in house?
What Expenses was the CFO Report Talking About?
Many. And substantial. Two major health systems reported costs expected to exceed $1 billion. Licensing fees. Implementation costs. Training, additional hardware, consulting fees, and operational costs.
The article that I linked to at the top of this article tells about the experiences of eight health care organizations that suffered financially.
The costs can be staggering and may cost your corporation it’s survival.