In a recent blog post, Medsphere President and CEO Irv Lichtenwald outlined his thoughts on how EHRs' prices affect the larger healthcare system.
A CNN Money article from last September found healthcare costs increased more in August 2016 than in any other month since 1984. The reason behind the rising costs is, as Mr. Lichtenwald wrote, complex. But technology is largely contributing to such increases.
"The real culprit of increased spending? Technology," Austin Frakt, PhD, wrote in a New York Times article from earlier this year. "Every year you age, healthcare technology changes — usually for the better, but always at higher cost." Dr. Frakt is referencing the broader scope of technology and not only health IT, but Mr. Lichtenwald highlights the specific significance of health IT costs.
Although Mr. Lichtenwald believes technology-related advances have bettered the healthcare field, he's skeptical of the price tag of items like EHRs. "And how much should a hospital be willing to pay for these safeguards? It's a difficult question to answer, given that some hospitals can afford a little and some a lot," Mr. Lichtenwald wrote.
While large health systems can afford to spend big on EHR implementations, smaller systems are "spending mere millions to create operational and financial challenges that will hopefully abate over time," Mr. Lichtenwald wrote.
Mr. Lichtenwald said costly EHR purchases can have lasting consequences on the healthcare system as a whole. "[H]ealthcare costs don't exist in the vacuum of one organization," he wrote. "Purchases like these push healthcare costs up for the entire system."
Mr. Lichtenwald claims healthcare IT should be creating tools to drive down costs. "Where technology has historically driven up the costs of healthcare, we need to make IT the exception," he concluded.