How Are Governments Inspiring Hospitals to Adopt EHR Systems?
The increasing preference for healthcare information technologies (HCITs) has led to the widescale adoption of ambulatory electronic health record (EHR) systems, globally. HCITs facilitate the secure exchange of health information between consumers, payers, and providers and enable the management of health information across all computer systems. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) under the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), office-based physicians, pediatricians, and gynecologists/obstetricians in the country are the largest users of HCITs. This has further stimulated the adoption of ambulatory EHR systems in the country.
Governments across the world are encouraging clinics and hospitals to switch from traditional health recording systems to the electric format. For instance, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of the U.S. government inspires medical facilities to adopt EHR systems, with the objective of improving and modernizing the healthcare system of the country. Owing to this reason, the ambulatory EHR market is expected to accelerate at a 5.9% CAGR during 2017–2023. According to P&S Intelligence, the market stood at $4.0 billion in 2016, and it will reach $6.0 billion by 2023.
The integration of ambulatory EHR systems helps in reducing the overall medical expenses, while maintaining the quality of healthcare. Healthcare organizations are introducing EHR systems in their out-patient departments (OPD) to reduce their operational costs. Both hospital-owned ambulatory centers and independent centers are the key users of this advanced system. Currently, hospital-owned ambulatory centers are the primary users of EHR systems due to their vast patient base on account of the high prevalence of chronic diseases.
The advent of cloud-based EHR solutions has secured the data and made it fully accessible, irrespective of the network traffic or time. These solutions are automatically updated and require fewer IT resources and less space and capital investment. These benefits result in immense cost savings for clinics, without the devotion of extra time and deployment of additional staff to manage the bulky hardware. The integration of cloud-based EHR is also simpler, as it operates on the web and not on the user’s computer, thereby eradicating the need for dedicated software and hardware.
In the coming years, the Asia-Pacific ambulatory EHR market will exhibit the fastest growth, due to the huge investments being made in EHR systems by non-profit organizations, government agencies, and private companies and surging geriatric population. Moreover, the rising incidence of chronic illnesses in the highly populated nations of India and China will fuel the adoption of ambulatory EHR systems in the foreseeable future. For instance, the Government of India has introduced various initiatives under its Digital India plan to implement EHR in telemedicine and e-Health.
Thus, the increasing penetration of HCITs and cloud platforms will fuel the integration of EHR systems in ambulatory centers in the coming years.
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