Early into his second term, President George W. Bush called for the nationwide adoption of universal EMRs by 2015. Most healthcare organizations seem to be on board with this mission and agree that widespread use of EMRs will reduce storage and recordkeeping costs, protect patient confidentiality, and improve research and patient care. While the potential benefits are evident, most healthcare practitioners are slow to implement EMR practices and platforms.
The aversions to EMR adoption are well documented. First off, there’s the cost. Transitioning to an EMR not only involves an investment in new technology components, but also a cost associated with the implementation resources (e.g. technical consultants) to ensure a successful rollout. Second, and more importantly, is the change in workflow that is required on the part of the healthcare facility and the physicians. Shifting from a manual paper to an automated electronic platform is a complex process that takes time. Many healthcare organizations feel that the time it takes to implement the technology, redefine the workflow processes, and get the entire staff up to speed on the new system has the potential to negatively affect patient care in the near term. Healthcare facilities that have put their EMR initiatives on hold due to these or other aversions may find hope in many of today’s EDM (electronic document management) and ECM (enterprise content management) systems.
More and more, ECM offerings are being used by healthcare organizations as a bridge technology to EMR implementations. Though an organization may be a couple years from implementing an EMR, or may be in the early stages of a multiyear EMR rollout, it is possible to begin the digitization of medical records much earlier and make those digitized records available to providers in a patient care setting by installing an ECM system first.
Source: Healthcare Technology Online
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