Law Students

HITECH/HIPAA compliance is not a one time event but a process. The same holds true for implementing an EHR system. In order for a provider or facility to reach their objective they will need to work on the people, process and platform components simultaneously; all three are required to move from "no EHR/Compliance Story" to a "Good EHR/Compliance Story."

However, more is required than just a philosophy, providers and facilities need methods that will work in the trenches, and traditional waterfall methodologies are not going to cut it. So what will? There is no cookbook answer to this question.

That said, if we are ever going to get to Health 2.0, including meeting all of HHS's meaningful use requirements, then some sort of agile process will need to be adopted. The graphic below is an example:

What we label the discrete "steps" is not nearly as important as adopting an iterative methodology. There is simply no silver bullet magic solution to this problem. Anyone that thinks that there is has been drinking the "kool aid" and/or listening to lots of sales pitches.

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