Pros and Cons of EHRs
In the present day, there are multiple commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) EHRs in the market, which increased popularity is determined by availability and efficiency. That is why the functional department was chosen for the transition to a COTS HER with the suggestion of three products – Epic, Cerner, and Allscripts Sunrise Clinical Manager. In general, the implementation of EHR has multiple substantial benefits. As EHRs are designed for the management of patient information, they “can assist healthcare providers in generating, storing and retrieving vital patient information, ranging from medical histories to lab diagnostics, for the provision of high-quality care at different level” (Alanazi et al., 2020, p. 1). In addition, due to the sharing of data through EHRs, healthcare providers improve the safety of healthcare delivery, avoid medical errors, reduce healthcare-related costs, and improve the efficiency of decision-making. Finally, EHRs improve the reputation of medical facilities due to patients’ positive perception of these systems as they receive an opportunity to access their health records and participate in the process of treatment.
At the same time, EHRs have particular disadvantages mainly connected with their technological aspects. In other words, as these systems are constantly updated and used by people with poor technical skills, it may substantially decrease productivity and the quality of health care delivery. In addition, the majority of EHRs are expensive or presuppose constant maintenance costs. Finally, EHRs are vulnerable to cyberattacks, the consequences of which may be devastating if the privacy of patient data is impacted.
Barriers to Adopting
The barriers to their implementation partially predetermine the disadvantages of EHRs. According to Yehualashet et al. (2021), these barriers traditionally include insufficient IT qualification, computer literacy, and EHR knowledge, a lack of EHR-related training and management support that lead to a lack of willingness to use a system, inadequate technical help, absence of perceived information and system quality, a system’s complexity and cost-inefficiency, inappropriate equipment, and limited internet access. While all three products, Epic, Cerner, and Allscripts Sunrise Clinical Manager, are COTS EHRs on the basis of a cloud platform that may substantially improve the quality of health care delivery, they have particular barriers to their adoption. For instance, Epic is highly expensive as its pricing starts “at $1,200.00 for their self-hosted solutions, and $500,000 for large clinics and hospitals” (Green, 2022, para. 52). In turn, due to the number of various options, both Cerner and Allscripts Sunrise Clinical Manager may be regarded as complex for health care providers with limited EHR knowledge and computer literacy.
Benefits of Adopting
At the same time, considering that specific training will be provided to increase health care provider’s EHR literacy, all products can provide substantial benefits and improve the department’s performance. Thus, Epic has multiple features and supports patients’ engagement in health care through follow-ups, access to health records, and video visits. In turn, Cerner supports more than 50 medical specialties and provides the opportunity to analyze data in order to ensure the efficiency of decision-making and avoid errors. Finally, Allscripts Sunrise Clinical Manager promotes the communication of different specialists and data sharing between them for efficient and coordinated care.
Most Appropriate EHR
On the basis of the products’ analysis, it is possible to conclude that Cerner may be regarded as the most appropriate option. As previously mentioned, it supports multiple medical specialties. Having the same number of features as Epic, Cerner is more cost-efficient (Green, 2022). In addition, its practice size is extended – from a solo practice to more than 50 physicians (“Cerner,” n.d.). In this case, this EHR is applicable to both medical facilities and departments. Finally, along with standard features of EHRs, such as patient access, information sharing, data collection and analysis, scheduling, and document management, Cerner has a specific function that allows to reduce of information-seeking time.
References
Alanazi, B., Butler-Henderson, K., & Alanazi, M. (2020). Perceptions of healthcare professionals about the adoption and use of EHR in Gulf Cooperation Council countries: A systematic review. BMJ Health & Care Informatics, 27(1), 1-10.
Cerner. (n.d.).
Green, J. (2022). How much EHR cost and how to set your budget. EHR in Practice.
Yehualashet, D. E., Seboka, B. T., Tesfa, G.A., Desalegn, A. D., & Seid, E. S. (2021). Barriers to the adoption of electronic medical record system in Ethiopia: A systematic review. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 14, 2597-2603.