Going Green

EHR’s impact on healthcare

The business community’s paper consumption is escalating by 20 percent each year and does not seem to show signs of decreasing. Within that segment, the healthcare industry is at the forefront of paper use. As more focus is placed on electronic health records (EHRs) and patient files, the healthcare community can not only anticipate enhanced physician workflow but also positive improvements for green initiatives within the healthcare community.

The attention on healthcare reform and the promotion of health information technology is a large facet of current government politics, as seen in the Obama administration’s EHR incentive plan included in the recently passed $787-billion stimulus legislation. The plan calls for the U.S. government to spend $19 billion over the next few years, with significant provisions for health IT to encourage physicians, hospitals, and other providers to adopt and use EHRs to advance the delivery of healthcare.

The EHR was created for automated and streamlined physician workflow, which is why it is important to focus on the benefits to having EHR systems in place, those being: safe storage of health information, electronic sharing of clinical information, improved patient safety, reduced costs associated with duplicate and/or unnecessary tests and treatments, and reduced medication errors due to electronic prescriptions.

As the healthcare community begins to see industry-wide implementation of EHRs, environmental aspects should also be up for discussion and viewed as very positive. Hospitals in the U.S. generate an enormous amount of paper. In fact, it has been cited that roughly 6,600 tons of healthcare-related paper is disposed of daily, and some 80 percent to 95 percent of that ends up in landfills.

Due to confusion about laws within the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), many hospitals and medical centers are paying to shred files and records that can otherwise be recycled in regular paper bins. Hospitals can save hundreds of thousands of dollars annually if they work with a local paper hauler instead of shipping documents to a shredding company.

Administration would need to assign someone who is responsible for HIPAA regulations into their recycling programs. For example, having a person on staff to ensure the paper is securely transported to the recycling facility and disposed of properly can help meet compliance issues surrounding patient security and fraud.

With the introduction of EHRs, healthcare IT now has an opportunity to drastically reduce paper consumption across the healthcare industry. And while EHRs may not lead to an entirely paperless healthcare system, they may create positive environmental changes, including: reducing the healthcare industry’s carbon footprint, decreasing the consumption of forests and trees, and minimizing the use of landfills.

There are options for hospitals and medical centers that want to receive information about voluntary waste management programs and networking opportunities. A non-profit organization called “Hospitals for a Healthy Environment” (H2E) is backed by the American Hospital Association and funded primarily by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The organization’s goal is to assist the healthcare industry in money-saving, safer standards surrounding environmental waste concerns.

— Kevin Shepherd, CPA, is based in Austin, Texas, and serves as the chief development officer of Medical Management Professionals, based in Chattanooga, Tenn.