Self-assessment for practices considering electronic medical records

The author provides an outline of potential pitfalls in implementing electronic medical record (EMR) systems, and poses nine "self-assessment" questions that need to be addressed early in the planning for EMR adoption. These self-assessment questions, in turn, focus the medical practice on achieving: unanimous physician commitment and participtation, presence of a skilled project manager, a technologically savvy office staff, staff readiness and acceptance, updated staff job descriptions, uniform physician workflows and "macros" in charting, regular and on-going communication, implementation strategies for scanning and archiving, operational practice efficiency PRIOR to EMR implementation.

Not addressing these issues up front willIn order to achieve optimal results these issues