Are electronic medical records worth the costs?

• Position: EMR

Electronic medical records were supposed to be at least a partial cure for healthcare inefficiencies and expense in the United States, enabling better record coordination for individuals and thus better care, as well as reigning in the trillions of dollars spent on health care each year.

However, implementing and using such records systems have been neither inexpensive nor without challenges. While the costs for many providers have been largely offset by the federal incentive payments, the evidence thus far seems to suggest that most providers are not yet seeing the payoff, according to a recent report from the American Action Forum (AAF).

The report found that only a few years after passage of the HI TECH Act, adoption has significantly increased and much more data is being collected and reported digitally. An estimated 78% of office-based physicians were using some form of EMR system in 2013, and 48% were using a qualified "basic" system. Among non-federal acute care hospitals, 76% were using...