Electronic Medical Record Implementation Challenges for the National Health System in Greece

The purpose of this work is to expose challenges related to the implementation of quality electronic medical record (EMR) systems in public hospitals in Greece, a country where the national health system (NHS) has already acquired electronic medical records (EMRs). The level of EMR implementation, together with organizational maturity at a hospital level, are explored. What is discovered is that there are different adoption levels, not recorded in a systematic manner. The majority of physicians are either reluctant to implement EMRs or do not know options available to them. Implications include not continuous flow of events, cut off of critical information, lower quality of health services, patients not empowered to carry with them clinically significant information, unnecessary repetition of medical procedures and higher costs. It is concluded that focus should be paid on enabling the use of quality, interoperable and secure EMRs to better support medical decision, in an effort to improve the health of the population and to better control costs.