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By Vicki Amendola, Editor, Healthcare Technology Online

Just like the age-old question about the chicken and the egg, the debate over which should come first when discussing ECM (enterprise content management) or EHR technologies can be just as unclear. What should be crystalclear, however, is that if your goal is to achieve the ‘complete EHR' nirvana, you can't embrace EHR alone. You must also embrace ECM.

In recent years, many providers have invested a significant amount of their capital budget into EHR technology, believing that simply moving to an EHR solution would make their facility paperless. Unfortunately, this couldn't be further from the truth. Perhaps we can blame some of this disconnect on the fact that several EHR vendors offer document management modules as part of their solution. The fact is, however, that many of these modules are fairly basic and don't fully address the abundance of relevant content that still exists — outside of the EHR.