Report Estimates Costs of National EHR Implementation
A report published in Government Health IT describes the conceived costs to launch a nationwide electronic health record system (EHR), as described in a presentation made at the Institute of Medicine. The suggested costs were described at a workshop to assess development of an information infrastructure across the country.
A professor of health economics from the University of California San Francisco, Robert Miller, estimated that the cost to launch EHRs across the country that are all linked would cost around $150 billion. The process would also take approximately eight years to complete.
The breakdown of costs includes $35 billion to both acquire and deploy EHR systems. An additional $55 billion would be spent on operating costs for the systems. The bulk of monies will be spent to equip practitioners with fully functioning EHR systems, estimated around $15 billion in capital costs and $24 billion in new operating costs.
Though the sum sounds significant, it is actually only an increase of less than one percent in all the healthcare spending across the country. And, more and more hospitals and clinicians are integrating information technology tools as a routine part of clinical practice. Facilities are also recognizing the potential increases in revenue associated with technology implementation.
He further suggested that most healthcare facilities have sufficient profit margins to sustain the costs to implement EHR systems. Notably, this may be more challenging for smaller facilities and public hospitals.