On January 6, 2014, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) presented a discussion paper proposing a financial model to help hospitals and other healthcare providers assess the costs and benefits for implementing EHRs and related technologies.
The discussion paper “Return on Information: A Standard Model for Assessing Institutional Return on EHRs” was developed by participants from the Digital Learning Collaborative of the IOM Roundtable on Value & Science-Driven Health Care.
Julia Adler-Milstein, University of Michigan, Gregory Daniel, The Brookings Institution, Claudia Grossmann, IOM, Shad Mulvany, Healthcare Financial Management Association, Rachel Nelson, HHS, Eric Pan, Westat, Valerie Rohrbach, IOM, and Jonathan Perlin, HCA Inc. shared ideas in the paper.
The paper points out it may seem obvious that both the demands for higher reliability and higher value healthcare requires robust EHRs, information exchange, and deep analytic capabilities. However, it still remains difficult to measure the return on investment for these information systems. This is due to the lack of a standard model for determining the costs for implementing the systems or the benefits of using EHRs and related technologies.
The paper discusses how the standard model would be able to evaluate institutional investment in EHRs and related technologies, help to identify best-in-class implementation approaches, and prioritize process redesign endeavors. There is now a model that is being introduced as a reference for business case development for providers to use when investing in an EHR.
Summed up by Jonathan Perlin, writing in the Health Affairs blog at http://healthaffairs.org/blog, the benefits for a standard model are enticing. First, financial officers would not have to develop their own unique assumptions about possible costs and benefits for every EHR implementation. A standard model would provide credibility in discussions with other executives, board members, and even in negotiations with EHR vendors.
Secondly, the comparability model would help identify more efficient approaches to implementing EHRs based on differences in experiences between provider sites and be able to accelerate learning about best practices.
He added that while there are other opportunities that a standard model could offer, just being able to evaluate both costs and benefits would provide insights on the relative performance of different EHR products and that might help accelerate improvements in the technology itself.
To view the discussion paper, go to www.iom.edu/returnoninformation.