Reply #11: It's easy to tell physicians to adopt EMR

[katinmn]

but the reality is that there are a gazillion different systems out there with little standardization. A clinic system has to be able to dovetail with those of one or many hospitals, labs and pharmacies.

Most docs are starting off with very basic systems for prescriptions because they know the feds will invariably make changes to reporting requirements, as in HIPAA. They're also waiting for the bugs to get worked out and for some basic standardization in the electronic medical records field. As with a lot of software companies, you might invest in a system, train your people, get your data entered, and then the software company goes out of business. Then you are left with system that no one on staff can fix when it goes down.