On one hand, physicians across the board are under financial distress - particularly, primary care physicians. On the other hand, the government mandates the use of electronic medical records (EMR) system over the coming years.

The 2009 HITECH Act provides fiscal stimulus to encourage practices to adopt EMRs. Medicare will provide a total of $44,000 over five years starting in 2011. Furthermore, Washington is evolving "meaningful use" guidelines that must be met for an EMR user to qualify for the stimulus. So what must a practice do?

Here's a small checklist of questions to ask yourself while reviewing an EMR system:

1. Other than complying with a government mandate and earning $44,000 over five years, what is my motivation to use an EMR?
2. Is the system flexible? Will it disturb my workflow?
3. In a world where my bank and brokerage are web-based, is the system web-native?
4. Does it understand my medical specialty and not simply provide me a template?
5. How long does it take to document a patient chart when I'm with a patient? How long does it take to retrieve intelligent information?
6. How much do I have to invest in training myself and other clinical users?
7. Is it secure? If things don't work out, will I have access to my patient data?
8. Does it integrate with my procedure room?
9. Is billing intelligence integrated at the point of care? (not simply upcoding E&M codes)
10. Does the vendor integrate business services with the product that would allow for complete automation at the practice?

NextServices has an EHR. Click here for a list of features of Enki EHR