Shortlist of just three EMR vendors worries Alberta doctors
August 19, 2008 | Matthew Sylvain

EDMONTON | The news that only three of approximately a dozen electronic medical record (EMR)-system vendors in the running have made a crucial EMR-program shortlist has sparked concern among Alberta doctors who have already adopted EMRs.

Alberta Medical Association (AMA) president Dr. Darryl LaBuick said his group was deluged with calls and e-mails from worried doctors after the late-July news reached its membership.

The government, in an end-of-July statement, said Practice Solutions, Med Access and Wolf Medical Systems had met all the capacity and capability criteria of the planned province-wide EMR system as defined in a request for proposal.

Crucially, the EMR offerings of the three vendors will now be field tested, the government added. This next phase is scheduled to wrap by late 2008 or early 2009. Conceivably, even fewer vendors could win ultimate approval.

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The shortlist was prepared for the Physician Office System Program (POSP), the Alberta government-funded EMR program.

The program traditionally provides funding to physicians for a wide-range of EMR systems. When the current process is complete, doctors will only receive funding for systems on the final shortlist.

The problem is “there are doctors out there right now who are going to have to make possibly their second or third jump (in EMR vendors and systems), and it is a lot of work,” Dr. LaBuick told the Medical Post.

The response to the shortlist news “is an indication that this is a passionate issue for physicians, and they take great value in EMRs, but (EMRs) do take a lot of time, and they come at a tremendous cost, both financially as well as time,” he continued.

The AMA members want to know if they’ll be reimbursed for the costs of transitioning to the approved EMR systems, as well as “clarity on who will be eligible for POSP funding in the future, and the level of funding,” Dr. LaBuick noted in a July 29 letter to members.

The AMA will continue to push the government on these points, he added.