An EHR system offers numerous benefits to healthcare providers, including increased efficiency and government incentives for EHR payments. In addition, the system offers higher patient satisfaction and puts you ahead of your competition.

Whether you’re looking to install a new EHR system or upgrading what you already have, the shift can come with additional costs that you didn’t plan for. To accurately allocate a budget and predict the project’s ROI, you must ready yourself for additional costs.

Here are four factors that can affect the costs of implementing EHR:

HARDWARE AND ADDITIONAL IT INVESTMENTS

When shifting to EHRs, healthcare providers need to invest in tech equipment. This ranges from servers for holding the software and storing data to computer workstations for physicians and doctors.

You may also need to upgrade your networks so that doctors can access EHR data anytime with no downtime or performance challenges. And if you use a cloud-based EHR, you may have to upgrade your internet bandwidth for data to be transferable back and forth.

SECURITY TOOLS

When your facility starts holding patients’ health information electronically, you need to invest in state-of-the-art security systems to protect data and comply with HIPAA regulations. Some of the security measures include firewalls, encryption tools, network monitors and computer anti-theft tools.

EHR TRAINING

Doctors, nurses and your employees will require thorough training on how to use the newly installed EHR system and the best security practices. After all, your facility can’t make the most of the IT investment if employees don’t know how to use it optimally.

A NEW LEARNING CURVE

Switching to an EHR is a big change, and even with the best training, it will take time for people to get used to the new workflow and begin working efficiently. At first, efficiency could reduce and you may have to hire temporary staff until your current employees get accustomed to the new system.

Switching to an EHR system from paper records is a great move that requires both resources and time. For assistance with this, please contact EHR1 and speak to our professionals.

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