Attorney Steven Fox, partner in the Washington office of the law firm Post & Schell, sees hospitals facing tough choices between now and late 2010.
He believes many hospitals will wait to implement or expand clinical systems until regulations come out later this year clarifying "meaningful use" and certification requirements for electronic health records.
That means EHR vendors in the first half of 2010 will be inundated with requests for services, and they won't have enough skilled personnel to complete all requests by October, Fox says. "If hospitals wait until next year to start, there's no way they'll be up and running by Oct. 1."
And for those hospitals that start late, vendors will be the driver's seat, Fox adds. "What's to keep the vendors from jacking up the price and being totally unreasonable?"
Fox encourages hospitals to start work now to choose a vendor and enter a contract with implementation work to begin in January 2010 "so you're getting in line."
It's important, he notes, to include contract language that the vendor will explicitly comply with all federal requirements or the hospital can terminate the contract. "It's time the vendors have to step up to the plate," Fox contends. Don't accept a vendor that says it can't comply with regulations it hasn't seen, he advises. "Find another, don't sign the contract."
--Joseph Goedert
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