SAN DIEGO – Contrary to conventional wisdom, return on investment – or ROI – does not drive the adoption of electronic medical record systems in hospitals and physician practices, according to an executive with the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.

Pat Wise, vice president of Healthcare Information Systems at HIMSS, made the statement during a conference session at the HIMSS Summit, an annual gathering of healthcare IT leaders. Wise said that while ROI could indeed be measured as result of EMR implementations, many healthcare institutions without the technology did not seem to recognize that.

“There is a real business case to be made for EMRs, but the word has not gotten out,” Wise said. “Nobody doubts the financial importance of practice management systems anymore, but EMRs are an even better tool. More organizations need to know that EMRs are a better business practice.”

Wise said that most healthcare institutions that adopted EMRs did so to improve patient care and workflow. Yet while ROI was not the initial impetus behind most transitions from paper, organizations could measure it post-implementation.

Using data supplied by winners of the HIMSS annual Davies Awards – which recognize excellence in the implementation of EMR systems – Wise argued that the financial evidence came down in favor of implementation.

She explained that healthcare organizations measure two types of ROI – soft and hard. Soft ROI usually refers to important, but often unquantifiable, improvements in patient care. In contrast, hard ROI means direct financial savings or gains.

“An EMR often brings clarification to the messy world of billing,” Wise said. As an example, she described the experience of Evanston Northwestern Healthcare in Chicago. The institution enjoyed a $2.5 million increase in revenue due to improved charge capture after implementing their EMR.

Physician practices have also shown considerable ROI after an EMR implementation, Wise contended. She said that North Fulton Family Medicine in Ga., recouped $775,000 in transcription costs after adopting an EMR in 1998, and experienced an ongoing annual savings of $275,000.

Wise said that the truth about ROI needs to get out because EMR implementations may be stalling.

“Surveys tell us that a large percentage of physician practices that don’t have EMRs have no intention of implementing them in the near future,” Wise noted. “Those numbers are scary.”