Dr. Martin Dawes of Montreal, Quebec is the winner of the first CanadianEMR survey on Non-EMR products and services which attracted 166 responses from 454 registered physicians and practice managers on CanadianEMR.ca (36% response). Dr. Dawes and his group are just in the process of implementing an EMR in their practice. He wins a Hewlett Packard Officejet J6480 All-in-One printer, copier, scanner and fax for his practice. The high response indicates the significant interest amongst physicians regarding the products and services that surround and support an EMR-based practice.
CanadianEMR has always been interested in understanding the complex ecosystem surrounding the use of Electronic Medical Record systems within the Canadian healthcare environment. Physicians require a variety of software, hardware and services to gain maximum return on investment when implementing or using EMR systems. To better understand this EMR ecosystem, we asked our users for guidance.
The results from the 166 responses are broken down into three main categories, Physicians considering an EMR (33% of respondents), Physicians currently using an EMR (62% of respondents) and Practice Managers (5% of respondents).
- All respondents to the survey showed a strong interest in a variety of hardware categories, ranging from Monitors at 74% to Computers, Laptops and Tablets at 81%. Other categories of interest include Network Installation (73%), Internet Access (72%), Services surrounding medical charts (69%), Support for home access to EMR systems (67%) and Dictation and Transcription software/services (63%);
- Physicians considering an EMR had a greater than average interest all of the hardware categories (on average 10 percentage points higher), but a lower interest in services surrounding management of paper charts (58%). These results indicate that first time EMR buyers have not yet been exposed to the challenges of management, storage and destruction of paper medical records which are seen as a significant burden by physicians who have already adopted an EMR;
- Physicians currently using an EMR had the most interest in services surrounding paper medical records (77%), followed closely by a number of hardware categories;
- Practice Managers had similar category interests to the Physicians considering an EMR, however 100% wanted more information on computer hardware, laptops and tablet PCs and 71% wanted more information and services to assist with the installation and support of Networks in a physician office.
More detailed information about this survey will be published on the CanadianEMR blog in the near future.
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Is the money received from EMR funding considered a taxable benefit from Revenue Canada ? The government has done this with other programs just wanted to know if this was treated the same.
Posted by: Andy | November 17, 2009 at 05:51 AM
Andy, my understanding is that the payments from the provincial programs are considered a taxable benefit by Revenue Canada. In other words, you would generally receive some money up front from a provincial program and then monthly amounts to compensate you for your investments made in the EMR. These amounts would be considered a taxable benefit by Revenue Canada.
Posted by: Alan Brookstone | November 17, 2009 at 09:44 AM