When you have spent as much time in the software industry as I have, you begin to think you’ve seen it all before.  I feel like I am having the same conversations I had in 1983, or as is it simply “deja vu all over again”?

Start with the assumption, that no application can do everything and then you can begin the discussion on where to cut the joints.  Many times it is more important to determine what you are not going to include in your application.  Years ago, when my team was working on PowerPoint, we made the decision not to include charting… you know, line charts, bar charts, pie charts, etc.   What were we thinking?  Businesses needed these charts and how could we possibly do a presentation product that did not include them?  At the time, we knew that other companies that specialized in spreadsheets or business graphics were much better equipped to provide this type of content.

Today, hospital IT is overwhelmed by the rush to install or upgrade EMR (Electronic Medical Records) systems with the Feds committing $19 billion to the effort.  Large EMR providers are licking their chops to get a larger slice of the pie than their competitors.  Most of the providers are trying to create the fully integrated hospital, obviously with their products, like a giant octopus, sitting in the middle with its tentacles spread throughout the hospital.

This strategy assumes that the EMR vendor is able to deliver the best solution in each of the 10 or 20 areas in the hospital…  best of breed everywhere?  I think not.  What the non-healthcare Enterprise market has learned over the last 30 years is that best of breed suppliers need to be easily integrated into an Enterprise solution.  Data needs to be seamlessly interchanged, inter-app communication is clearly defined.  User experiences should reflect the user, and not some systems engineer’s idea of how much information can be shoe-horned onto a single screen.

Less is more.  Keep it simple.  I vividly remember one of the first conversations I had with a nurse.  I had asked her what could we do to create a great solution.  Her answer was simple, “Don’t give me one more thing to do”.