User Group

I am in Orlando.  I am not here to bow to the god of Disney, opening the coffers of my wealth to the wonder of the mouse\’s greatness.  I am at a meeting of geeks.  I am at the user group meeting for my EMR product, Centricity.

These meetings have a lot of personal meaning to me.  I have been using the EMR for over 14 years, and have been attending these meetings for 13.  I served on the board for the EMR user group for four years, and even as its president for a year.  Before I started wasting…I mean spending all of my time blogging, I was throwing that same energy into EMR, and becoming a \”power user\” of their product.  These meetings were a time to see other geeks like me (some of whom became close friends), and share my knowledge and experience in our use of the EMR.

Things have changed, and now I am not at or near the center of attention like I once was; I am now attending to actually learn things.  The whole \”meaningful use\” requirements are breathing down doctors\’ necks, even doctors who have used EMR since it was done in morse code.  Despite the fact that our office has been meaningfully using EMR for over a decade, we want to be sure we qualify for the incentive money.  In truth, if we don\’t qualify for it, it will be a very strong sign that the system is terribly wrong.

Since I was once an \”insider\” in this user group, and since this meeting covers a topic that his hot on everyone\’s list for healthcare and healthcare reform, I will be reporting back to you from the meeting.  I will be \”live tweeting\” the meeting (my Twitter ID is @doc_rob) and I hope to record some video of people who know a lot more about this stuff than I do.  We shall see.

What about Fred?  Fred will show up later this weekend.  He\’s too busy to waste his time in Orlando.