Question

Justify the investment in healthcare information technology projects based on return on investment, cost/benefit analysis, compliance with regulatory requirements, quality improvement, and decreased risk.

Answer 1

Modern hospitals invest a huge amount of money to buy sophisticated equipments.Electronic Medical Records provides various benefits .But based on its cost effectiveness it has both advantages as well as disadvantages.But the cost issue is one of the hinderance in the implementation of EHR systems in hospitals.in a study it was reported that cost benefits analysis of EHR system shows that it has a positive return on investment(ROI)and numerous benefits have occured in hospitals implemented with EHR systems such as savings in drug expenditures,radiology tests,billing errors and medication errors.This has definitely brought a significant improvement in quality.After the introduction of EHR systems the use paper -charts deceased and the reimbursement process was improved.But the newly implementedEHR system created additional costs that were not incurred with the paper-chart system.There are two types of costs assoiated with the implementation of EHR.Firstly cost required to build the system infrastructure,to develop the EHR applications and the other cost occurs to provide assistance to doctors through medical transcriptionists..The EHR has substantially increased the quality in health care and improved patient satisfaction .It has reduced the risk for patients as the chance of medication error has been lessened.