The document discusses the benefits of adopting electronic health records (EHRs) in healthcare facilities. It distinguishes between "hard" benefits that are directly quantifiable, such as cost savings, and "soft" benefits that are indirect and more difficult to quantify, such as improved quality of care. The summary discusses how a study found that healthcare practices recovered the costs of implementing EHRs within 2.5 years on average and then realized $23,000 per employee annually in net benefits, much of which came from efficiency gains and increased revenue from more accurate billing. The summary concludes that while soft benefits are hard to quantify, they can significantly improve healthcare over the long run by transforming organizations and facilitating higher quality care through use of clinical