Serving physician information needs: a model for the transition to an electronic medical record.

The requirements of a rapidly changing, competitive marketplace have amplified an existing demand for improved clinical information within the healthcare organization, and focused increasing attention on the expansion of ambulatory care services, especially primary care. At the Queens Health Network (QHN), the consolidation of operations and regionalization of services compels the sharing of patient data throughout a multi-hospital system. Quality care for patients across a variety of settings, whose locus is no longer the inpatient hospital, requires the ever more rapid retrieval of longitudinal, integrated patient information at the point of service. In the spring of 1996, implementation of a computerized electronic medical record (EMR) was proposed by senior administration to the medical staff as an integral component of QHN strategic and business plans. The decision was made to implement the software choice of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (NYCHHC), Ulticare, by Per Se Technologies (formerly Health Data Sciences).