Mythbusters - 4 Myths about Hosting your own EMR solution

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) May 22, 2009 -- Myth 1 - Purchasing the software to host myself is cheaper than paying a monthly fee for a hosted solution.

In a perfect world, IT services are free, there is no software maintenance cost and hardware technology never gets outdated of goes down. Unfortunately this is not a perfect world. IT cost money, hardware goes down, software maintenance costs exist for a valid reason, and technology depreciates faster than a new car.

The IT cost of hosting EMR on-site

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Mythbusters - 4 Myths about Hosting your own EMR solution

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Do you hire a full time IT person (60-80K a year), or pay for an IT service (200 – 600 mo) or let your uncles nephew come in under the table 10.00 an hour? Or do you take this on yourself? As a physician, do you have the extra time to manage an IT system i.e. Server, network, work stations, Operating system upgrades, EMR software patches and upgrades, Medical Database (databank) updates… Your time is valuable. Would you let an Ophthalmologist operate on your heart? Of course not, so why would you let your uncle’s nephew run your mission critical IT system?

When you add up both time and expense of managing your own IT infrastructure, it actually cost less to pay for an ASP or professionally hosted EMR solution. Should the hardware go down, who do you think could get it working faster? The hosting professionals or your uncle’s nephew? Physicians actually get a lot of value bundled up in that monthly hosting fee. IT up time guarantees, managed updates, professional trained personnel on call 24 x 7, automatic and scheduled EMR software updates, fixes, patches, medical databank updates. Peace of mind, and more time to focus on your practice can go a long ways here.

Myth 2 – If the internet goes down, my practice shuts down.

Loosing internet connectivity would be exactly the same scenario should your own hardware go down. Bottom line, connectivity to the server is lost. However, when your internet connection goes down, if it goes down, there is a team of professionals on call 24 x7 to quickly resolve the issue. Should your own hardware go down, you are on your own to get it fixed, and bringing in a professional hardware service at down time can cost you a fortune.

Any EMR solution worth its weight has a down-time backup plan enabling medical practices to continue business, catching up, once back online. These methods include anything from paper forms to running a smaller client version of the software on your tablet PC, that later synchronizes when back online. Loosing internet connectivity does not have to be the end of the world for your medical practice and definitely something you can be well prepared for with appropriate planning, and the right EMR solution.

Myth 3 – Paying monthly for EMR software as a service means I am purchasing the software several times over the course of a few years.

So if the EMR software cost 10K to purchase, and I am paying 400 a month instead to use the software as a service (ASP- Hosted), this means I am paying for the software every 2.08 years!

Nothing could be further from the truth. Your IT expense incurred by you, because you are “saving money hosting your own software in-house” could range from 10K to 100K easily.

My wife, who works at a small animal hospital, pays 360 a month for an IT service, so they don’t have to hire a full time IT person. Through the course of hardware issues, downtime and software upgrades, they end up paying about 15k to 20K a year for IT service. While this may seem like a lot of money, paying a full time IT person could easily double or triple that amount. My wife, who is not an IT person, also spends approximately 10 to 20 hours a month doing software backups, defragmenting the hard drive, and various other tasks the help to keep the IT service price down to a minimum. What would 120 to 240 hours a hear of your time cost? If you are a solo practitioner, that cost could be substantial.

Myth 4 – Having my data available over the internet is a huge security risk for my patients, and my business.

There are three major subsets of data security that must be met whether your EMR solution is ASP based (Hosted) or installed locally (Client / Server).

• The applications used to access the records must be secure.
• The network over which the records are transferred must be a secure network.
• The database within which the records are stored needs to be encrypted where appropriate.

Just because your data may be stored on a server in-house does not mean it is secure. For example, applications like Citrix, RDP and others can provide access to your in-house data. And of course, your server could stolen, database backups stolen or misplaced etc. Patient records can be downloaded onto a disgruntled employee’s zip drive and so on.

As you can see, there are many more security risks that come into play when you host your own EMR solution.

The PrognoCIS EMR ASP solution is hosted by the same company that hosts national banking institution databases. So yes, the database is secure. PrognoCIS encrypts the data, and lives up to HIPPA standards. Network access is so secure, it can also include only your IP address in addition to user login and password, making PrognoCIS one of the most secure EMR solution on the market today.

When you weigh the security risks of hosting your own EMR solution in-house, hosted PrognoCIS EMR is a safer alternative.

Summary

Octave solutions offers both a Client / Server (In-House) EMR software solution as well as Hosted EMR software solution. There are valid reasons medical practices wish to host their own solution in-house. The purpose of this article is to dispel some of the myths so medical practices can logically select the appropriate approach in EMR software deployment.

Visit http://www.octavesolutions.com for a free online EMR Software demonstration.

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