Compare this with EMR, which has two kinds: Onsite deployment, where the servers are at the hospital, and web based deployment, where the servers are with the company the hospital works with. The cost for each comes out to about $500,000-$600,000 for the first year, after adding labor costs. As a result, the savings for the first year would be more than $2 million if switching to EMR. However, after five years, the savings drastically increase, as the annual cost of EMR has a much smaller fee of about $4000-$8000 while the annual cost of paper record keeping is constant. Thus, EMR would save a hospital about $10.5 million after five years.
While EMR saves a lot of money, it takes time to go through all the departments and data systems to compile the data. In fact, it takes longer to retrieve data from an EMR than a warehouse. Thus, a linked or singular data system must be established for more physicians to start adopting EMRs.