When details of the federal incentive payments within the HITECH Act of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 emerged earlier this year, there was some concern that a gold rush would ensue to simply implement an electronic health record (EHR) system to get at those dollars.

It's still too early to see if those fears have been founded. There have been enough warnings and advice, however, to steer providers away from such a scenario. In a column, consultant Robert Drewniak basically said if there is no support, there will be no adoption of EHRs. He's absolutely right.

As large health systems begin their multi-year, multi-million dollar journey, and even as physician groups begin much-smaller implementations, careful planning of the implementation itself, attention to workflow and operations transition and ongoing support should be part of the overall roadmap.

For large health systems that can afford it, part of the spend should go to consultants for these tasks. Physician groups, whose budgets are much smaller, can access a number of free or low-cost resources offered by various organizations, associations and other entities. Innovation can be found in community colleges, as IT companies partner with these institutions to help train and prepare physician group staff. No doubt, the market will come up with even more ways to fill providers’ needs.

The bottom line is that providers need to have a roadmap in place before they begin.