It’s time for ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) to recognize that electronic health records (EHRs) are a necessity in today’s modern health environment. EHRs support the clinical mission, minimize paper, offer reminders, facilitate cross-vendor communication, reduce errors, streamline processes, allow for transparent information sharing, offer seamless and HIPAA compliant charting, increase automation, and improve integration, most important, improve patient safety and quality of care! That’s quite a laundry list of benefits. So what’s the hesitancy?

There were two main barriers that have delayed EHR adoption in the ASC market, even as they became standard in hospitals and other healthcare settings.

The first barrier was that regulatory structures that required EHRs in hospitals have included carve-outs to exempt surgery centers from these requirements – for example ASCs were not covered under the provisions of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009. ASCs did not face the same penalties for lack of meaningful use of EHRs and they do not have access to the same financial incentives to make adoption fiscally more appealing.

The second barrier was the culture within surgery centers, where things tend to be done the way they have always been done. Making a shift from paper to EHRs required significant changes to business practices and staff habits, and required a significant financial investment. It seemed like more risk than it was worth for many surgery centers.

But the tide has turned as the role of ASCs in meeting the demands of the healthcare system have skyrocketed over the past decade. In today’s healthcare market, it’s much riskier and more costly to continue to compete without an EHR than it is to implement one. Here are five reasons why:

EHRs today work better than the early 2000s editions. When the federal government initially subsidized e-chart adoption for hospitals, there were many different software platforms created to meet the demand. But these systems were clunky, designed for large hospital institutions, and incredibly expensive. And because they were designed for hospitals, the software did not make sense for ASC workflow or work well in a surgical setting. However, we’ve come a long way over the past two decades. There are now EHRs specifically designed for ASCs that meet the speed and dynamic nature of an ASC, permitting customized workflow, allowing concurrent charting at all times, and providing ongoing collaboration about patient care activities, potential risks, and treatment indicators. The systems available now are intuitive, with simple user interfaces, and importantly, have the ability to scale to meet new demands in patient volume and procedures.

EHRs allow scalability. Surgery center cases tend to be data-heavy, with scans and imaging files that must be saved somewhere. ASCs should not buy more file cabinets or pay for more offsite storage containers. The answer is the cloud. With the right EHR system that is cloud-based, a surgery center has the capacity to scale up their patient volume while managing the information that goes with it. Having an EHR system that is cloud-based allows a center to manage its information safely and securely, with room to grow, eliminating the need for physical storage.

EHRs eliminate “Paper Based Friction”. Private payers and state and federal governments are requiring more information and reporting to track patient data and quality metrics for reimbursement. For ASCs that are trying to appeal to large insurance companies or hospital systems to become part of their network, they will need to show they can code for patient procedures, track records for claims, and track health outcomes. Without a way to easily track, pull, and share this data with payers, it will be difficult for individual ASCs to remain competitive.

EHRs are a must-have to recruit good physicians and staff. Every business wants to be able to attract the best talent. And it’s increasingly unlikely that the best talent (be it surgeons or office staff) will tolerate having to wade through a growing mountain of paper records. Young staff recruits are tech-savvy and will likely expect that an EHR is standard in most healthcare facilities. Similarly, surgeons and nurses who are accustomed to using EHRs in hospitals will find it difficult to revert to paper documentation if being recruited to work at an ASC.

EHRs are essential for regulatory compliance and reporting. An EHR system facilitates better communication between the ASC facility, patients, vendors, and regulatory bodies. There are more and more requirements for reporting on patient health and outcomes, and the EHR is the best way to ensure compliance and therefore, payment.

ASCs that are still operating without an EHR system should take a look at their business operations and realize EHRs actually offer a smooth solution once integrated into the health center operations. With an emphasis on interoperability, the right EHR systems will streamline the collection and flow of information that the ASC needs to communicate with, and reduce the clerical data entry necessary to  work well with other ancillary business software services that help the ASC run their day-to-day operations.

Robert Marinich is Senior Vice President of Sales for HST Pathways, a leading provider of cloud-based software solutions for the ambulatory surgery centers