EHR: here or there?!?

Posted 22 June, 2007 in tech choices

You’re a doctor and, in order to catch up with the times, you’re in the market for an EHR. They come in two flavors: software you buy and load on your own computers (aka client/server) and software you access over the Internet (aka web based/ASP.) I’m oversimplifying this a bit and there are a number of variations on those two themes (like web applications that require custom plugins etc.), but basically the question is whether the software will reside at your office or in a data center somewhere else.

Some people will give you big lists of PROS and CONS. Not I. Hosting your own EHR is dumb and I’ll tell you why. YOU’RE A DOCTOR. You’re supposed to be practicing medicine, not worrying about server uptime and security and maintenance patches. You should let a competent EHR company manage your data and the program upkeep. Client server programs were great in the early 90s before the Internet, but they are something much less than intelligent now. Here’s the reality: everyone is online nowadays. If you’re not online, you need to buck up and get online. It’s a necessity in today’s world. Your patients need to be online. They need access to their own medical records, too. The client server approach doesn’t provide that. ASPs do — they allow you to access your data anywhere in the world at any time. That’s the power of the Web and you should be leveraging that.

Some will argue that a web approach isn’t as “rich” a user experience as the client/server. Those people were right several years ago, but with AJAX, Flash, and Java they are now WRONG; everything you can do in a client/server graphically, you can do in a browser. Others will say that ASPs are slower. Again, this is simply an antiquated view. Bandwidth is cheaper than an in-house IT staff. If you want to be ensured of constant connectivity, buy several DSL lines from different vendors and aggregate them together. You will save money.

Don’t be fooled by 80s era companies living in the dark ages. The ASP model is the right one. Choose it and be happy.

Some releated links for further reading:

http://emruser.typepad.com/canadianemr/2004/06/is_asp_vs_clien.html
http://businessweek.buyerzone.com/software/electronic-records/buyers_guide6.html
http://www.emrexperts.com/emr-ebook/client-server-vs-asp-comparison.php

5 comments to “EHR: here or there?!?”

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