They do offer major benefits over paper records. EMR is able to keep every patient record in one easily accessible place. Paper records could get lost, the files could be destroyed, and they could also get stolen. Since EMRs are in one place, the records are more secure, which there is always the threat of hackers, but good EMR provides excellent security (Hall, 2016). Another positive to switching to EMR is because they save money in the long run. The EMR has an annual savings of $44 billion. They reduce the need for chart rooms and a record clerk. There is no physical storage needed for an EMR and that alone saves loads of money (Admin, 2015). For example, one center, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, saved about 2,000 square feet after implementing EMR which equaled to about $100,000 a year (Wagner, 2013, p. …show more content…
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was created in 1996 as a federal regulation to protect the confidentiality of patient-specific information. When the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) came to action in 2009, this changed some aspects of HIPAA because it provided incentives for hospitals and physicians to implement EMRs (Wagner, 2013, p. 87-90). One aspect of the HIPAA change was the increases in civil and criminal penalties for which the maximum fine per violation raised from $100 to $50,000. Along with this, new privacy requirements for personal health information (PHI) have increased. Provisions were made to account for EMR that that protected treatment, payment and operations of the patient (Wagner, 2013, p.