Preferred EMR Vendor Process

As suggested by ONC in their original Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), Regional Extension Centers were encouraged to identify Preferred EMR Vendors.  The objective of this process is to provide a greater value to REC participating providers.  First, the REC field staff will be able to provide valuable information to Kansas Providers about the Preferred Vendors, including the specific information obtained throughout this process.  We believe this will help providers forego much of the up front research.  Second, we will use our Group Purchasing Organization to negotiate favorable pricing with our Preferred Vendors, thus saving our REC parcipating providers money.  Lastly, we believe that by working closely with these Preferred Vendors, we will be able to offer a greater value to our participating providers.  Having said all of this, the KS REC will still support a providers decision to pursue other EMR vendors so long as we feel they offer a product that will help them reach and maintain Meaningful Use.

Given I receive numerous questions about this almost daily, I thought it appropriate to outline the Preferred EMR Selection Process we are following.

Here are the steps KFMC has followed to date to identify and select potential preferred ambulatory EMR vendors.

1. An Electronic Medical Records Steering Committee of twelve members was formed from nominations made by various stakeholder groups comprising the Kansas. This committee includes five physicians from Kansas, and seven non-physicians.

2. The Kansas Electronic Medical Records Steering Committee reviewed and approved high-level governance and process steps including identification of vendors, and review and selection process.

3. A tentative list of EMR vendors was identified by consulting CCHIT, KLAS materials and a review of the current landscape of vendors in Kansas. Steering Committee members reviewed and added suggestions for additional vendors to be added. A total of thirty two vendors were ultimately identified.

4. After sending a solicitation to the thirty two vendors, twenty seven asked to participate. As such, a set of "minimum" requirements was provided to twenty seven (27) of the original thirty two.

5. Vendors were asked to submit a letter of intent and their response to the minimum requirements by 5 pm CDT on May 26th. Twenty (20) vendors submitted responses.

6. Based upon scoring of the minimum requirements, the full RFI was sent to seventeen (18) vendors. This full RFI is due back to KFMC by Tuesday, June 22 at 5:00 PM CDT.

-Next Steps-

7. The EMR Steering Committee will review the RFI responses and will likely conduct site visits to practices in Kansas who are currently using the potential products.

8. Approximately 8 vendors will be chosen who will then work through a full RFP process with our Group Purchasing Organization.

9. The RFP responses will be shared with our EMR steering committee who will ultimately select the preferred vendors (approximately 3 – 4) to partner with the KFMC Regional Extension Center.

Note: We are considering creating a second list of EMR vendors that our REC would publish as viable to our providers. This list would be created by simulating the above process and will be initiated by a RFI published on the KFMC website (www.kfmc.org).