GE offers e-health records as SaaS offering

Computerworld - GE's health care division today announced its first electronic medical record (EMR) product in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform aimed at small or remote physician practices with a lower-cost, monthly fee model.

GE Healthcare's Centricity Advance product offers a combination of EMR, physician administrative management and patient portals.

The SaaS offering differs from a traditional hosted or application service provider model in that after a start-up fee of $4,000 to $9,000, customers are charged a monthly subscription fee, said Chittaranjan Mallipeddi, vice president and general manager of GE Healthcare IT's newly launched SaaS business unit.

"Most ASP models charge the customer a large upfront fee for the software purchase, followed by indefinite recurring hosting fees," Mallipeddi said. "The differences are subtle but critical."

The subscription-based EMR service generally runs between $300 and $800 per month, GE said. The average cost to install an in-house EMR system is around $20,000 to $30,000, according to industry experts.

According to Mallipeddi, Centricity Advance can be deployed in under a month, including clinician training, which is conducted via a Web portal. Once the system is deployed, physicians will be able to demonstrate "meaningful use" of their EMR in order to receive reimbursements under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, he said.

The new software service also offers a patient self-service portal that allows them to access their personal medical records using a secure password in order to schedule their own appointments, request prescription refills or access billing statements, lab results and private messages from their clinicians.

GE's new SaaS-based EMR is based on software from recently acquired MedPlexus Inc., a vendor of Web-based administrative, financial and clinical software and services for physician practices.

Dr. Desiree Butter, a general practitioner with a family practice in Wexford, Pa., said she has been using MedPlexus's EMR since October 2004. She doesn't use it in a SaaS model but sees advantages to that approach. For one, Butter said she often has software integration problems that a hosted model would eliminate because the service would be responsible for those kinds of issues.

For example, Butter uses a secure e-mail platform so that her patients can contact her over the Web. Since her EMR system does not offer secure e-mail, her patients must use two separate Web pages, one for their medical records and a second to communicate with their doctor.

"Some of the patients are using the e-mail option, but they're finding it cumbersome," she said. "They also don't like having to go to another Web site and download encryption software onto their computer and deal with their passwords expiring over time."