Five Signs You Need a New HIE Solution

I’ve written a lot about the new EHR switching market. EHR implementation software has become quite mature and so we’re entering a new world where new EHR sales are going to come from hospitals switching EHR software. Yes, there are a few hospital EHR stragglers out there, but the majority of new EHR sales are going to come from switching.

While I’d seen this coming in the EHR market for a while, I hadn’t carried that over to the HIE market as well. In this case, I’m really referring to a private HIE that a hospital might employ versus a third party HIE provider. Is the HIE market in a similar “switching” market like EHR? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

This question came to mind when I found this eBook called, Five Signs You Need a New HIE Solution. It’s a free download if you want to check out the whole eBook. The 5 signs it suggests are worth some discussion:

  1. My data sharing solution isn’t meeting my needs, but the thought of replacing it is painful.
  2. My technology is old. We need an architectural update.
  3. I can’t access or share my data when I need to.
  4. I can’t make changes to my HIE solutions without my current vendor’s involvement. Plus, they take too long and charge too much.
  5. I don’t feel confident that my current HIE partner is well equipped to handle healthcare’s changes, challenges, and uncertainties.

It’s amazing how universal these signs are with any software. This list could have applied to EHR software as much as HIE. In the eBook, they discuss each of these in more detail. I’m sure that many of these issues resonate with readers.

As I look through this list, I wonder if switching software is the only way to solve the problem. I think in most cases the answer is that switching is the only solution. The reason many don’t switch is fear. Plus, that fear is exacerbated by colleagues from other organizations who have switched their system and not seen an improvement. That’s why so many organizations stick with The Devil You Know for much longer than they should. Hopefully the above list of signs will help people who are going through this evaluation. Just make sure that if you do need to switch HIE or other software that you take the time to make sure your new software won’t suffer the same issues.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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