ELLKAY lets you revisit your EMR mistake

The announcement is good news, and not just for customers.

The EMR software world is filled with horror stories from practices that went with a vendor only to find they made a mistake.

My eye surgeon, for instance, went back to paper records after his new eye scanner's format proved incompatible with his EMR solution.

Stories like this, told and retold at professional meetings, tend to have a paralyzing effect on clinic decision-making. With EMR conversion, it's no longer quite so much of a big deal. Mistakes can be corrected.

This will help vendors as well. They can now close sales if clinics know the decision is not their final answer. And they can now call on clinics and hospitals who had already committed to another vendor -- just find out who's dissatisfied.

Simpler conversions will also help spur Health Information Exchanges (HIEs). Ready format exchanges of records are essential to their movement between clinics which can't be depended upon to have the same software.

So this is essential to the growth of the industry. It's a good thing.