Changing Paradigms in Indian Hospitals – Paper records Vs. EHR: cost benefit analysis.

The current systems in use in many small and big hospital and healthcare provider settings in India are paper-pen based health records. This means significant costs for following reasons –

• Paper and stationary
• Manual filing and folder systems
• Secure vaults / record keeping rooms that increase real estate costs
• Overheads for managing the above including salaries of staff in records department
• Costs of scanning and printing
• Poor security – Permanent loss of records through theft, fire and similar as there are no virtual back-ups.
• Illegible records and prescriptions that may increase clinical errors and in turn financial liabilities to the given professional / organisation.
• Records without automated decision making aids and algorithms or alerts
• Manual data mining when doing clinical audits, quality improvement as well as Research & Development
• Poor accountability trails for who does what, paper records can be substituted or destroyed and replaced with ease.
• Working outside progressive norms and legislation by regulatory authorities which increasingly expect use of EHR in India
• Lack of portability
• Poor access for the patients to their own data.

Also read – Advantages and Disadvantages of Electronic Health Records in India

Back to About EHR in India

Image credit: Click Here