Going digital? Let the government pay

Don’t miss out on valuable subsidies

As electronic medical records become increasingly commonplace in Canadian doctors’ offices, the old excuses about difficult, unreliable software have largely been proven spurious. But still most physicians have resisted switching entirely to digital. Why? The reasons are no longer functional — modern EMR systems are excellent, safe and easy for even basic computer users — but rather financial: the costs of EMR implementation and maintenance, and the requisite hardware, can easily run into the tens of thousands of dollars. Changing your whole charting process is hard enough. Changing your whole charting process and paying through the nose for the privilege? For a lot of physicians in private practice, that’s asking too much.

A consensus has emerged in the nascent EMR-adoption literature that the cost of setting up an EMR system may be the greatest barrier for many interested doctors. Mercifully, provincial governments have taken note and, over the last three years, many have created substantial subsidy programs to lighten the financial burden.

Click here to read the rest of this article, including a province-by-province guide to EMR subsidies, from the current issue of Parkhurst Exchange.

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