The advantages and benefits of EMR systems are discussed at many forums and platforms and there is no doubt in it that there are countless advantages of the implementation of the EMR system. Similarly, if a practice is not implementing the EMR system it is also losing a lot in terms of financial benefits and various other matters. The EMR system as an advantage is like transferring everything, task, work or processes on the EMR system from the manual system. The basic reason and logic behind implementing the EMR system is storing the complete data of the patients i.e. medical, clerical and administrative in a centralized computer system. The most important disadvantage the clinics and doctors have to face is very simple, i.e. they are not as efficient and effective as the clinics with EMR systems are in terms of managing the patients’ information. The list of the disadvantages of avoiding EMR implementation is almost a reciprocal of the list of the advantages of the EMR system implementation but there are a few more points involved in the disadvantages. Let us discuss the disadvantages of not having a EMR system implemented in the clinic.
– Time: The first disadvantage is the wastage of time in working with various things at a time. The clinic staff and doctor himself gets busier and doing other tasks i.e. clerical and administrative, the patients’ medical care can be neglected somehow.
– Cost: The EMR system seems to be much costly in the start but that is a major cost for one time and for rest of the time period there is just a nominal maintenance cost to bear. The cost of not having a EMR system is more than having a EMR system as there will be more staff, more work and time consumption, less patients could be handles in more time, less systematic operations and procedures.
– Data storage and retrieval: The data storage most importantly, for which the whole EMR system is designed and managed becomes very easy with EMR system and so as the data retrieval. It is computer software which is a way more efficient in entering and searching the records of the patients than writing or finding the whole paper files.
