Coalition offers doctors help with EMRs

Organized medicine forms a consortium to promote electronic medical records software to physicians.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. Aug. 16, 2004.

The AMA and 13 medical specialty societies have formed a coalition to help physicians adopt and learn more about electronic medical records software systems.

The goal of the Physicians Electronic Health Record Coalition is to aid doctors, primarily those in small- to medium-sized practices, to select and use EMRs that are affordable, suit their needs and can interoperate with other information systems, enabling physicians to easily exchange data with their trading partners.

Because PEHRC is so new -- it was announced on July 22, one day after the Dept. of Health and Human Services laid out a road map for creating a national health care information infrastructure -- it hasn't had time yet to work out how it will accomplish its mission, said AMA Trustee Joseph M. Heyman, MD.

PEHRC expects to hammer out a detailed agenda within six to 12 months, said David C. Kibbe, MD, co-chair of the coalition. Dr. Kibbe is director of the Center for Health Information Technology at the American Academy of Family Physicians.

In addition to the AMA and AAFP, the coalition's founders are the American College of Physicians, American Academy of Neurology, American Academy of Ophthalmology, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Cardiology, American College of Emergency Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians, American College of Rheumatology, American Osteopathic Assn., American Psychiatric Assn. and American Urological Assn.