The real cost of on-premise EHRs: Key sources and common challenges

Recurring expenses of an on-premise EHR

It’s no secret that operating an on-premise EHR can be expensive, especially for ambulatory healthcare practices. Maintaining an IT department, installing and obtaining the initial software license, regulatory updates, and fully upgrading hardware and software are all huge price factors that healthcare practices with on-premise EHRs are facing.

Large capital expenses may not be of great concern to large hospitals, but to smaller practices with fewer physicians, taking on these expenses can become a major struggle. Research shows that the average cost of implementing an on-premise EHR ranges from $15,000 to $70,000 per provider. To get an idea of the primary components that go into implementing an EHR, a practice should keep the following in mind:

• Hardware
• EHR software
• Implementation Education and testing
• Ongoing network fees and maintenance

Time consuming upgrades

Another significant factor of operating an on-premise EHR are the regular software upgrades that practices are responsible for managing the majority of the time. These upgrades are notoriously extensive and can take a substantial amount of time to complete. This means that unless your practice has its own IT team to manage them, other practice professionals such as nurses and physicians often are forced to bear the burden.

When it comes to preparing and completing an upgrade successfully, there is a lot to plan for. Proper execution, testing, and correcting errors all take place after hours so upgrading can best avoid conflict with regular hours of operation. According to customer research, each on-premise upgrade typically takes around 8-10 hours, requiring many practice professionals to work extremely long hours to ensure the upgrade is completed correctly.

The expense of IT security in healthcare

The expense of IT security is another factor to consider when examining the costs of being on-premise. The healthcare system is highly susceptible to cyber-attacks so in order to best protect their patients’ data stored in an on-premise EHR, practices are responsible for ensuring their systems are secure, which comes at a high price.

Our research shows that practices spend significant amounts annually for disaster recovery and cyber liability insurance, as well as anti-virus, end-point detection software, and monitoring services. Additionally, on-premise EHRs require significant maintenance procedures to be performed outside of regular upgrades. Without a specialized IT department protecting you against security breaches and safeguarding data integrity with fail-safe backups then it’s likely that your system has missed an update or let a security issue slip through the cracks at some point. 

End the complexities of managing your EHR with a cloud solution

On-premise EHRs are a headache and they are unnecessarily costly when compared to an alternative, cloud-based EHR which happens to be significantly more cost-efficient. If you’ve been considering making the transition to a cloud-based EHR solution, it’s probably because you’ve reached your wit's end when it comes to managing your on-premise EHR. A cloud-based solution resolves recurring expenses, time-consuming upgrades, and concerns with IT security that you’ve previously dealt with while being on-premise.

The key sources of cost and other challenges that occur when using an on-premise EHR are important to identify and resolve early on so that your practice isn’t stuck dealing with the grueling upkeep of maintaining, testing, and upgrading an on-premise EHR.