Dr. Bertman's amazing adventure: How one doctor built an EMR

A Rhode Island physician figured that if he wanted an electronic medical record done right, he would have to build it himself -- even though he didn't know how to write a computer program.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. July 8/15, 2002.

Jonathan Bertman, MD, makes no bones that the electronic medical record he has designed is beta software -- it's still got some kinks to be worked out -- but says its functionality and price are so superior to existing commercial systems that his product is "amazing."

So amazing, in fact, that the solo family physician from Hope Valley, R.I., named his product -- and company -- AmazingCharts.com.

What also may be amazing is that rather than buy what he thought would be an inferior electronic medical record, he decided to create one himself -- even though he started the project with no knowledge of computer programming whatsoever.

It was harder than he thought. "I learned by doing it. I bought thousands of dollars worth of books on programming, and as problems came up, I sort of tackled them and learned how to do it."

Dr. Bertman's quest to build an EMR began two years ago when he started searching for and testing EMRs as he prepared to buy out his employer and go into private practice. He was determined to use an EMR because he didn't have any doubt that it could help improve his efficiency.

"I'm a technophile. I know the potential of what computers and the Internet can add, and I know that [an EMR] makes a whole lot more sense than writing or dictating because I've done all that."

His search, however, turned up several systems that cost too much, offered more functionality than he needed, forced him to change how he documented or required too much pointing and clicking to enter a single piece of information. [...]