Dive Brief:
-
A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association concludes that hospitals don't always take into account the full cost of implementing their EMR.
-
After reviewing the EMR installation at three unique United Kingdom healthcare organizations, conducting 41 interviews between 2009 and 2011, researchers found that there were four main areas of EMR implementation related costs.
-
Of these, hospitals most frequently cut back on training expenses when trying to reduce implementation costs, but this strategy frequently leads to problems in EMR installation, researchers said.
Dive Insight:
It's tempting to cut back on training when you're trying to pay for the massively expensive EMR. But as the study outlines, failing to meet the training challenge only leads to worse problems down the line, including safety hazards. It seems that hospitals may not have a realistic view of how expensive it is to get staff on board and using the EMR efficiently, particularly if they're focused largely on the software's price tag. It may be painful, but keeping the training budget in place is critical.