Emerging ASP model targets health records

Computerworld - As electronic medical records take center stage in the effort to eliminate errors by physicians and bolster patient care, the newest players trying to tap the emerging software market are health care providers themselves.

Several large groups of physicians are gearing up to offer smaller medical practices access to the EMR software they use, via an application service provider type of model. Their goals are to generate revenue and to make it easier to share patient information with other physicians.

For example, Morgan Haugh Medical Group, a multispecialty practice in Paducah, Ky., has begun discussions with other doctors in that state about providing them with hosted access to its ambulatory care EMR system from San Francisco-based McKesson Corp.

Eventually, the group also plans to open up the system to medical practices in Tennessee, Illinois and Missouri, said Joe Paul, director of information systems at Morgan Haugh. "If all you're going to do is see people coming in with colds and flu... you are limiting yourself to what types of revenue you may bring in," he said.

The group will handle setup, maintenance and training for the patient-charting and medication-prescribing software for a monthly fee. Morgan Haugh plans to purchase additional software licenses from McKesson as it adds clients, Paul said.

While software and hardware costs for smaller practices could total hundreds of thousands of dollars, Paul's group can offer EMR services for several hundred dollars per month, he said.

The Harbin Clinic LLC, a Rome, Ga.-based practice with about 130 physicians, plans to begin offering hosted access to its EMR system within the next two months, said CIO Thomas Fricks.

The practice uses an EMR system from Chicago-based Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc., which will license the software to Harbin at a discount. The clinic will provide frame-relay access to its practice clients, Fricks said.

Harbin will provide first- and second-level support for the e-prescribing, electronic tasking and lab results software with its 20-member IT staff and run the software on its servers. The practices buying access would pay for the individual physician licenses they use, communications costs to connect with Harbin, and hardware such as laptops, desktop PCs or tablet PCs, he said.

Fricks wouldn't estimate a cost for the hosted service but said it would be "substantially less" than the price a small practice would pay to move ahead on its own.

"It makes a lot of sense for us to get close to that referral base, from a business point of view and from a patient point of view to share information," he added.