Electronic Medical Records Systems Disadvantages

Every coin has two sides. We have discussed how helpful electronic medical record systems have been to doctors, nurses and clinical research professionals in terms of efficiency, versatility and manageability. However, electronic medical record systems come with their own disadvantages as well. However, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages and the disadvantages can be minimized largely.

Expensive - Electronic medical record systems are relatively more expensive than their paper medical record counterparts. The software for electronic medical record systems is may cost you thousands of dollars as it is made using the latest technology. Many efforts have gone in the making of the whole system. Hence, electronic medical record systems tend to be expensive at least in the beginning.

Usability - electronic medical record systems do not allow much flexibility to the users in the way they enter data in the system. In case of paper, medical records the users could enter information related to medical record and patients in any way they could. If they did not like the present system of recording then they could easily change it. However, this is not the case in electronic medical record systems. Most of the electronic medical record systems come with template forms in which the user has to enter data exactly in the fields, thereby offering him no flexibility. As a result, the user has to understand the whole system before he can start working on it.

Technical Support - Technical support in the case of electronic medical record systems is expensive. Technical support for electronic medical record systems may cost 15% to 20% of the whole software.

Maintenance - If the electronic medical record system goes down then it is only the professionals from the systems company that can bring it back to normal. As a result, time is wasted until the professionals come to rectify it.