Next Steps
Pilot Project - Recommended EHRs for Alaska providers
The initial goal for the Alaska EHR Alliance is to complete a pilot project to support adoption of selected EHRs by a number of physicians and mid-level providers. A key element of the pilot program will be the selection of two to three EHR vendors that will be recommended for adoption by providers statewide. This portion of the pilot has been funded for this year. The biggest barriers for providers in smaller offices to adopt EHRs are the time and disruption to their practices for the installation and training, and the expense to purchase the EHR systems. In order to help decrease these barriers, the Alliance will provide support in the selection of the EHRs along with a grant program to help with some of the initial expense.
After evaluation of the pilot project, a set of Model Implementation Guidelines, featuring best practices, will be recommended for providers statewide to use when adopting EHRs.
Statewide Model
The next goal will be to offer the successful model to all practices statewide. Our ultimate goal is to provide interoperability with major hospitals and other diagnostic facilities by making the electronic health record system as affordable as possible to small and medium size practices that would otherwise have extreme difficulty implementing without such support. Throughout the project, we will be working closely with Alaska eHealth Network, the organization working to provide the technology and legal agreements necessary to support health information exchange (HIE) between medical entities, while ensuring that the standards for privacy and security are met.