The Office of Health and Information Highway (2001) outline the following benefits of the implementation of EHRs:
- support patient care and improve its quality;
- enhance productivity of health care professionals and reduce the administrative costs associated with health care delivery and financing;
- support clinical and health service research;
- accomodate future developments in health care technology, policy, management, and finance
Benefits for Patients (The Office of Health and Information Highway, 2001):
- expanded reach of effective health care
- more secure information
- improved sense of well-being
- access to information about how the healthcare system works
- improved healthcare and decreased risks (e.g. adverse drug reactions)
- integrated health services
- do not have to repeat basic information such as name and address
- increased confidence knowing that all health care professionals have access to all relevant parts of their medical history
- access to their own health records help patients to make informed decisions about their health
- avoidance of duplicate, invasive, and/or expensive tests
- reduced waiting lists
Benefits for Health Professionals (The Office of Health and Information Highway, 2001):
- integrated view of patient data
- increased access to other related and integrated patient information
- improved access through a portal to related health services
- improved decisions with up-to-date patient information on an as-needed basis
- improved seamless care through coordination of multi-professional and multi-agency care
- improved development of decision support systems
The Canadian Nurses Association (2002) Discusses EHRs' Potential Benefits for Nurses:
- availability of comprehensive information on the care of clients/patients covering the continuum of health service delivery, across health professionals, and over time
- convenience and ease of access, transfer, and retrieval of information
- ability to view and display data from different views to support clinical, administrative, and research functions
- provision of a dynamic approach to nursing research and to the development of new nursing knowledge
