New EHR Business Model
December 12, 2006
In a report from HealthcareIT News, titled, “Vendor to offer web-based EHRs to docs in exchange for data“, a company called Practice Fusion is announcing an new business model for community physicians. It is a hosted model for EHRs where the company will discount their services and then sell “de-identified data to insurance groups, clinical researchers and pharmaceutical companies.” Can this business model work? Small practices might welcome a lower cost solution, however, they and their patients might be concerned about whether the data is fully deidentified and their privacy protected. Will the host vendor be covered by HIPAA?
