International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 8, Issue 5, May 2018 159 ISSN 2250-3153 http://dx.doi.org/10.29322/IJSRP.8.5.2018.p7726 www.ijsrp.org Does Electronic Medical Records make cost benefits to non-profit seeking health care institutes? Amarasiri H.A.D.B. * , Dorabawila S.S.K.B.M. ** * Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. ** Department of Economics and Statistics, Faculty of Arts, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. DOI: 10.29322/IJSRP.8.5.2018.p7726 http://dx.doi.org/10.29322/IJSRP.8.5.2018.p7726 Abstract- Background: Sri Lanka provides a free public health care service to its permanent residents. Currently Sri Lankan health care system is in the process of using EMR systems both public and private sector healthcare institutions. There are few published data available regarding cost-benefits of EMR in profit seeking institutes in some countries and no published data on non-profit seeking institutes. Therefore, main objective of the study is to perform a cost benefit analysis (CBA) of EMRs in the public health care system in Sri Lanka and secondary objectives are to evaluate the perception of EMRs among patients, health care professionals and supporting staff. Methodology: Two Sri Lankan government hospitals’ OPDs; hospitals belong to Type A divisional category, were selected for the study. Those two hospitals were named as Hospital D and Hospital AR. Hospital D has an EMR system and hospital AR has traditional paper-based recording. A modified cost- benefit analysis was done using achievable costs and benefits. Meanwhile, three different questionnaires were distributed among health care professionals, supporting staff and patients to determine their perception on EMRs. Results: This study found that Benefits-to-Costs ratio of OPD of the hospital D for the year 2015 was 0.269 and for hospital AR was 0.0589. From CBA four basic cost reductions were found as costs for stationeries, patient queue waiting time, supporting staff number and indirect costs such as drug balancing. Health care professionals, supporting staff and patients had a positive perception on EMR systems. Conclusion: Implementing EMRs to Sri Lankan health care system leads to cost reductions. If Sri Lankan government implements an EMR system only in OPDs of government hospitals, it will lead to save millions of rupees. There are thirty-five, Type A divisional hospitals in Sri Lanka. If this EMR system is implemented only in OPDs, Sri Lankan public health care system would have saved Rs192 million ($ 1.3 million) in 2015.Finally, it can be concluded that implementing EMRs in non-profit seeking health care institutes lead to cost reductions and save money. Index Terms- Electronic Medical Records, EMR, Cost Benefits Analysis, CBA I. INTRODUCTION edical Record is defined as “A single record of all data on an individual’s health status from birth to death. It would include birth records, immunization records and records of all illnesses and treatments given in any health care facility.”[1] Medical records (MR) are known as health records in some countries and they are essential for patient’s present and future health care. Usually these medical records are a written collection of information about a patient’s health and treatments and used in management and planning of health care of the patient. Medical records of a particular health care providing institute begin with the patient’s first admission as an in-patient or with attendance as an out-patient for the health care facility. Accurate, timely accessible health care data plays a vital role in the planning, developing and maintaining of a good health care service. Therefore, a quality, accurate medical record and its availability is essential to optimize the health care services provided to the patients. With the development of Information Technology (IT), world is converting numerous manual applications and procedures into digital versions. As a result, MRs are also converted into its digital electronic version and it is known as Electronic Medical Record.US government health IT describes EMR as the digital version of traditional paper-based medical records.[2] Sometime EMRs are known as Electronic Health Records or Electronic Patient Records. Sri Lanka is a developing country and it has a developed health care compared to other developing countries in the world. Sri Lanka has a free public health care service to all permanent residents. Sri Lankan health care system has been using paper based Medical Records. Currently Sri Lankan health care system is on the point of using EMR systems and some institutes are using some forms of EMR systems including both public and private sectors[3]–[6]. Main purpose of implementing EMR in Sri Lanka is to enhance the efficiency of the health care system[3], [4]. But main obstacle is relatively high set up cost for implementing an EMR[7]–[9]. At the same time Sri Lankan Ministry of Health is in a position to introduce mechanisms to reduce health care expenditure due to imbalance M