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Summary
EHR Collaborative Paper by Danielle Joyner: Cost

There are many factors that contribute to rising costs such as; age, the type of illness, and life expectancy. In addition to these factors, there are also expenditures accrued by health systems, like EHR’s that may also increase the cost for a patient. One of the most popular health systems currently in health care is the Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR) system. Quality is the most important aspect of healthcare and EHRs are noted for providing this to patients but with a higher price tag. An EHR is an electronic record that allows health care professionals to easily retrieve and store patient charts on the computer, which is beneficial because it decreases patient wait times in the ER and physicians offices. These systems can decrease cost such as, reduced transcription costs, labor costs, reduced internal and external costs, malpractice insurance costs, and pharmacy costs. Efficiency is not cheap and initial EHR costs averaged $44,000 per full-time-equivalent (FTE) provider, and ongoing costs averaged $8,500 per provider per year, which will most likely increase the cost of physician services for patients. According to J Sidorov, “Electronic Health Record (EHR) advocates argue that EHRs lead to reduced errors and reduced costs. Many reports suggest otherwise. The EHR often leads to higher billings and declines in provider productivity with no change in provider-to-patient ratios.”

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