How Not to Handle EHR Certification Problems

Today I was thinking back on how differently EHR vendors have handled EHR Certification problems. First, take a look at the $155 million whistleblower lawsuit that eCW (eClinicalWorks) suffered thanks to improper EHR certification (amidst other things). They had to have known what they were doing and didn’t come clean. $155 million is just the first price they had to pay. Since then, providers have filed a class action lawsuit against eCW and the family of a patient also filed a lawsuit against eCW. This a painful and expensive experience for eCW. Anne Zieger reported in August last year that the eCW settlement hadn’t led to customer defections (yet?), but we’ll see how that plays out over time. It makes me wonder if the eCW founder, Girish Navani, still feels the same about never selling your EHR company. Maybe these lawsuits have made him wish he’d taken a buy out offer after all, but I digress. Today I remembered a situation where another EHR vendor had issues with how their certified EHR attested to meaningful use data. It was back in 2011, so I’m pretty sure many of you have forgotten it. Plus, I expect many of you have forgotten it because the EHR vendor in this case took ownership of the error and fixed it. Of course, this EHR vendor hasn’t fared quite as well as eCW in the marketplace. However, their choice to hide their certification issue would have no doubt made their market position even worse. The clear message I see in these ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR Healthcare HealthCare IT eClinicalWorks eCW GE Centricity Source Type: blogs