If implementing a new Electronic Health/Medical Records (EMR) system includes converting data from an old system, there are several questions you will want to ask before getting started. Will your current vendor assist in the transition by providing the data for conversion; in what format can you get it; how much will it cost; can you use your own conversion team? If you don't know the answers to these questions you are probably better off to stop looking at new software or to put your project on hold until you can get the answers. If the answers are not acceptable, what then?

If you are just starting the evaluation process or have not made your selection yet, it would be prudent to get these questions answered from prospective software vendors. Why?

The answers could derail your project.

One data conversion client/prospect had to cancel their data conversion plans because the billing service they had contacted with and were leaving, refused to give the clinic a copy of their patient data. After some discussion the billing service caved and delivered the patient data - ON PAPER! The new billing service was busy entering the necessary data by hand and of course charging for their time. That in addition to the obvious delay in going live caused by manually entering information from several boxes of printed reports, created numerous problems for the clinic.

The most serious of those problems was the distraction for the business of providing quality medical care to deal with administrative concerns. No doubt the providers were frustrated but so far as I know they did not take legal action against their former billing service provider nor could they avoid the distraction.

This clinic only wanted to migrate patient demographic, insurance and billing information all of which can be replaced without undue difficulty.

However, consider your situation and what you'd be faced with if the Chart Notes, Vitals and other clinical information were not available to you in a form and at a cost you could afford. Would you be forced to continue a relationship with a software vendor indefinitely, for that reason alone?

It's been said by many software salesmen and demonstrated by literally thousands of clinics that starting from scratch with a new Practice Management System is doable. The pain it not too great to bear and usually within a few months all is forgotten, or sufficiently so that office life with the new software works and is probably getting better.

The same cannot be said for clinics with any significant amount of chart data electronically recorded. Scanned and captured images, chart notes, lab results and other patient medical information may be vital to continued patient treatment. It can take months and maybe years to recapture and reload the information. In some cases it may not be possible or practical. Cost and accuracy become significant issues when working with that much data.

If data conversion is not an issue for you today, it will be in the future.

Ask the questions:

"When I decide to end this relationship,

"Can I get an electronic copy of my data?

"In what format will it be provided? Without encryption?

"How much will it cost?"

And of course get the answers in writing.