Need a Reason to Invest in EHR? How about 6!

Yes, electronic health records (EHR) systems are an expensive investment. But do their returns amount to an offer you can't refuse?

Here are the top six ways EHR will pay for itself in cost savings and increased quality, according to your colleagues, (and they don't even mention government incentives.):

1. Payroll Savings
   
   
   • EHR isn't necessarily about reducing staff, it's also about freeing up existing staff to do more meaningful, practice-building work instead of filing and looking for charts or resubmitting paperwork multiple times...
     
     
2. Improved Quality Control
   
   
   • “EHR encourages and supports precise documentation and thinking throughout the case that improves the quality of care and reduces legal exposure” Dr. Castleberry says...
     
     
3. Real Estate Savings
   
   
   • Paper files need space, and as a practice grows, these files require more space...
     
     
4. Enhanced Disaster Prevention
   
   
   • When paper files are destroyed, they are gone for good...
     
     
5. Easy Referral and Consult Letters
   
   
   • In the past, a referral letter required setting time aside to write or dictate the letter, then tasking a staff person with typing and formatting it, sending it to the patient or doctor, confirming it was received and resending it if it wasn't....
     
     
6. Effective Marketing
   
   
   • By using patient demographic information along with medical information an EHR can create reports to help decide on certain marketing methods....

Read more of this article by Lee Ann Murphy, Contributing Editor of Optometric Managment