Displaced doctors get offer of free technology

Companies are donating software, hardware and services to practices affected by recent hurricanes.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. Oct. 24/31, 2005.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society has begun soliciting donations from members interested in donating software, hardware and technology services to practices that were destroyed or damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Apart from that effort, some technology companies also are individually giving technology at no cost for up to a year to physicians who were impacted by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita or both.

HIMSS' offer applies only to practices affected by Katrina. "What we're doing is we're identifying paper-based practices in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama that were decimated by the hurricane who are interested in being reconstituted, so to speak, with electronic health records," said Pat Wise, vice president for electronic health record initiatives at HIMSS.

The Chicago-based industry group, which is working with quality improvement organizations in the Gulf Coast region to identify practices that want EHRs, also is asking its 275 corporate members -- as well as nonmembers -- to donate physician practice management software, hardware, and connectivity and consulting services, Wise said.

At press time, several HIMSS members had expressed interest in donating EMR and practice management software, Wise said.

Doctors will get the initial technology and services at no cost, she said. "Now will it be free for years to come? I don't know. That's one of the other pieces we will have to work on. It might be free or it might not be free. We're not even speculating on that yet because we just don't know."