I’m the pharmacist at a free clinic with about 10 to 15 doctors, open 1 night a week. We do no billing, PAP, appointments, etc. but we do have an in house pharmacy, patient records, lab links, SOAP notes and we need extensive record reporting to obtain grants and appease the government.
I’ve been looking over this site and I really like the no-cost feature to get started and the support from the community.
My concern is that, while I can do some IT stuff (Excel speadsheets, hooking up computers/printers, etc.) I can’t and don’t want to commit a lot of time to “tweaking” our system constantly to get it to work right.
And, if I’m off for a couple of weeks on vacation, is the whole clinic going to come to a halt if a bug comes up?
Also, I see that you have to subscribe to outside services to initiate eRx. I’m wondering what that costs and what other (if any) hidden expenses there are.
I guess what I’m asking is, if we can afford one that’s already up and running (like MDRhythm or DataNet) with all the modules we need, should we just go with one of those?
It would be nice to save the thousands of dollars on start up fees but I’m afraid of time commitment and I don’t want to re-invent the wheel, if you know what I mean.
I put a lot of time and effort into getting Medkind (another free one) up and running well and now it seems to be disappearing through no fault of the owner.
Thanks in advance for any advice on all this! feel free to e-mail me, if you would like. my e-mail is listed open to all.
Bob P
The least expensive way to use OpenEMR is DIY implementation. The group of physicians should learn as much as you for their own benefit. If they don’t devote time to this project, the clinic will run into problems in very short order.
Another Wiki article that should be of interest is this e-prescribing page.
There are Wiki articles and Forum discussions (use Google not the resident search engine) about lab reports. We rarely order labs or diagnostic studies, therefore there is not a lot of knowledge to draw upon.
With the exception of the e-prescribing, you can use OpenEMR right out of the box. If there are no Specialists in the clinic, there should be no need for customized forms for the H & P.
Forum members are generally helpful. The response time has decreased since the migration from the old format to the Allura software, which has greatly facilitated postings.
If you want cheap, your entire clinic will have to put in the time.
Hmm. thanks, but our doctors have usually worked all day at their own practice and just want to zip in and give us 2 or 3 hours to see as many patients as they can then zip out and go home.
So what I’m hearing is maybe just go with one of the systems that’s more user friendly but costs.
Bob
Many of EMR licenses are based on number of users.
If you need specific grant related reporting, you are going to need some IT/development skills. Hourly rates for custom reporting in proprietary systems are high.
E of the EMR is computers so you cannot get away from some support. You can hire some of the commercial support partners on a task basis or have a monthly retainer.
The platform for OpenEMR is robust. Most of our in-house servers have been up 1000s of hours without any support. Just set up or have someone set up a good backup/recovery process.
If you want to eliminate hardware worries and if your clinic is open just 1 night a week, best option will be to use Amazon’s cloud which has great rates at night and light usage.
With all systems, you will spend time in identifying the features you want to use and setting up flow. After that there is not much effort unless your requirements change or you find a bug that is fixed in the release.
Your main worry will be ‘interfaces’ - prescriptions, labs and other requirements that may come up in MU2. It take some work or some cash to get it right. If there is no billing, you may be better off with good old paper in many cases.
Best bet is to use the demo site, as unpredictable it may be because it is open to all, to try out your process. If it works there, you can roll out for few weeks on your laptop or basic hardware while continuing your current system. With no/low cost, you do not have much to loose.
If you start with DEMO, (a great advise,) remember to make a Back-Up of all the work you did, since every morning all is reset to the same zero configuration as before, and all you input of the day before is lost. But with a back up it is a simple restore and you can continue the following day. Good starter. But “The whole wide world of OpenEMR followers and other sometimes malignant followers can login and ruin your daily input”, so…, good for starters, but bad for continuity.
The next steps as explained by MD Support are more stable and very much worth investigating, a more honest reply you will not get. Remember to make some notes during the whole process, and don’t forget to publish your steps on OpenEMR-WIKI. Falling and recuperating and problems encountered being a newcomer is so great for the learning process and this information will be great for possible future users, like you once were.
If you are looking for cheap (YES money-WISE, not like bad product) => OpenEMR! Cheaper AND better will not be found (not including the cheap versions with back-ground services that have to be paid for).
For OpenEMR you need a computer and start working after installation. Just use SOAP. No program will deliver everything installed with the things USER’s need like name of specialists, hospitals, insurances. OpenEMR is very much USA oriented.
If you want to spend some money, just contact one of the more experienced advisers of OpenEMR. If you want more adventure/features for doctors, go where your money takes you.
REMEMBER: If you are desperate, come back for OpenEMR, latest stable version, you won’t be disappointed with the EMR options as soon as your doctors understand the possibilities of OpenEMR, there is no way back and they will thank you for your persistence to start with OpenEMR.
There is something they call free lunch! But free feeding is DIY, or get a feeder, with all consequences included as doctor fsgl mentions.
OpenEMR is not a lunch packet!
It is a high quality many course dinner, but you can skip if you like and take only the faster-diet-course or only take the main-course. But you have to get at least a spoon to get the food where you want it, but there are no hidden pharmaceutical extra’s included, nor any other attachments that will give rise to NON-FAT-free AND hidden posts for “whine” or “DIY-ne”.