RESOURCES
Know your EMR needs (Towards the Electronic Patient Record conference)
With more vendors entering the industry, experts say, physicians can be choosy about their technology. But first identify your key choices.
Read the entire article from American Medical News: Archived Version (PDF)
Public Clinics: EMRs good for quality, not wallet
More safety-net facilities are looking to electronic medical record systems as a way to provide better care for the uninsured and help save money.
But a study published in the January-February issue of Health Affairs indicates that the savings part of that goal could be a pipe dream.
Read the entire article from American Medical News: Archived Version (PDF)
Physicians and Web 2.0, Five Things You Should Know about the Evolving Online Landscape for Physicians
Most Doctors Aren't Using Electronic Health Records, New York Times article
Few physicians have implemented EHR systems, survey indicates.
USA Today (6/19, 6D, Davis) reports that "physicians are slow to adopt electronic health records (EHR) systems,...largely because moving from paper-based to computerized records costs so much," according to a survey published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Investigators polled "more than 2,600 doctors across the country," the New York Times (6/19, C3, Lohr) adds. They "found that doctors who use electronic health records say overwhelmingly that such records have helped improve the quality and timeliness of care." But, "fewer than one in five of the nation's doctors has started using such records." Furthermore, "electronic records were used in less than nine percent of small offices with one to three doctors, where nearly half of the country's doctors practice medicine." Healthcare experts say that "[b]ringing patient records into the computer age...is crucial to improving care, reducing errors, and containing costs in the American healthcare system."
Overall, the survey revealed that "just four percent of doctors use software that includes electronic prescriptions and drug-interaction warnings," Bloomberg (6/19, Alesci) notes. In contrast, more physicians, "13 percent, opted for more basic software that only allowed them to enter notes and medical histories."
According to the researchers, physicians "cited a number of barriers for not adopting an electronic medical record system, including concern about cost and return on investment," HealthDay (6/18, Reinberg) reported. Many physicians also said that they were concerned "about their system becoming obsolete," or going down, leaving them with "a waiting room full of patients," and no access to patient records. Despite these concerns, the authors noted that "[b]oth Medicare and private insurance companies are pushing doctors to adopt electronic medical record systems as a way of monitoring quality of care, which will be a basis for reimbursement levels."
The Wall Street Journal's (6/18, Goldstein) Health Blog, Reuters (6/19, Steenhuysen), MedPage Today (6/18, Peck), WebMD (6/18, Zwillich), and Modern Healthcare (6/18, Conn) also covered the story.
EMR DEADLINE DOES NOT COMPUTE: FALLING SHORT OF 2014 GOALS
Although individual physicians have embraced electronic medical record systems, the nation is far from an interconnected, interoperable network. Costs, hassle and a lack of congressional action are among the factors slowing health IT development.
By Dave Hansen, AMNews staff May 19, 2008.
In 2004, President Bush set a goal of most Americans using an electronic medical record by 2014. In his vision, doctors by then would be using EMR systems with interoperable standards that would allow them to share lab results, images, computerized orders and prescription information with hospitals and other health facilities. So how much progress has been made in the past four years? Not nearly enough, many EMR experts say. The nation's medical community is not substantially closer to an interconnected, interoperable EMR system now than it was in 2004, concluded a January California HealthCare Foundation report based on interviews conducted last summer with 22 health information technology experts from across the country. [...]
Read the entire article from American Medical News: Archived Version (PDF)
Physicians discuss ideal conditions for adopting EMRs.
Healthcare IT News (5/20, Wicklund) reported that at the 24th annual Towards the Electronic Patient Record Conference and Exhibition, the focus was "on how to improve adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs), how to fund the process, and how to guide the Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare Information Technology." The consensus was that physicians would not adopt electronic medical records until "it's shown very clearly that it improves the quality of care." Some physician attendees argued that "[a]ny technology or national standards...won't be accepted unless they empower the connection between physician and patient." Furthermore, several speakers emphasized that many "physician[s] won't switch from a paper-based system to an automated system unless it's easy to manage, and it has proven value." Therefore, they said that "the government has to clarify standards, improve transparency among providers, payers, and patients, and develop incentives that compel providers to adopt EMRs, rather than forcing them to use something they don't want or like."
