Interesting article.....
"A new Health Affairs study shows that, not counting Meaningful Use incentives, the average physician would lose nearly $44,000 over five years as the result of implementing an electronic health record (EHR) system. However, the researchers pointed out that some practices in the study had a large return on investment, suggesting that an individual practice's situation and the way it uses its EHR may determine whether it benefits financially or not.
The study looked at the experience of 49 physician practices in three Massachusetts communities. These were among the practices that received free EHRs and implementation support from the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (MAeHC) with funding from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts. The practices chose among a few different EHR vendors, which installed their systems in 2006 and 2007. Counting the value of the EHR donation as a cost, the researchers examined the practices' revenues and expenses before and after EHR adoption and then projected these five years forward from 2008.
Five-year return on investment was a negative $43,743 per physician. Only 27% of the practices achieved a positive ROI in this scenario. Primary care practices fared slightly better than specialty practices, and larger practices (those with six or more doctors) did better than smaller practices. Of large practices, 38% achieved a positive ROI, compared to 26% of practices with one or two physicians. "
Thoughts?
