EHR Wish List (part 1)

Here's a starting point for imagining our "ideal EHR:"

• Truly easy to use; intuitive; compelling.
• Improves practice work flow; easily adapts, rather than imposing its own.
• Bullet-proof security (data encrypted; access tightly controlled; activities logged).
• Create prescriptions & transmit to pharmacies (e-Prescribing).
• Facilitate coordination of care. (Reduce time spent collaborating with other providers.)
• Support Quality/"Pay-for-performance" practices driving payer incentives.
• Flag drug interactions and provide other automatic diagnostic alerts.
• Exchange information following emerging standards for health IT exchange.
• Capture patient preferences for HIPAA, data sharing, appointment times, correspondence.
• Send anonymous diagnosis data to public health agencies to support biosurveillance initiatives; this feature must be easily configurable by a normal (non-IT) human.

Some of this may not resonate with you yet, and I may have completely missed a must-have or two. In any case, I hope this gets your "imagineering" juices flowing.

Let's refine, expand, contract and explore these and other ideas to build a vision for EHR 3.0.