The people at AdvancedMD put out a whitepaper called EHR Myths Debunked: 5 Status Quo Myths that Hold You back and Reduce Your Bottom Line. I love the topic of debunking EHR myths. There are a lot of them out there that are propped up by misinformation. Plus, the EHR world is moving so quickly, it’s hard to keep up with all of the changes which solve the previous issues.
I love a lot of the stats in the whitepaper that they use to debunk the myth. For example, they say that “$42,000 could be wasted annually on paper charts.” This goes with the myth that looks at the financial sense of a paper chart system.
I found the last myth on their list really interesting: “Portability of patient records is a luxury for large practices.” I’d extend this myth to something I’ve heard some people say: “Small practices don’t need to have a portable patient record.” I’ve certainly seen those doctors who don’t want their patient data portable. In their mind they think that if the patient record can’t be accessed from home, then they won’t have to work on it from home. However, this isn’t a reality for most doctors. Ask the doctor who has to drive into their office at midnight to find a patient record if he likes the idea of a EHR software that’s easily accessed from anywhere at any time.
All of this reminds me of my EMR and EHR benefits series. There are so many benefits to EHR that we just take for granted. The EHR Myths whitepaper is a good way to remember many of those benefits.