Physicians aren’t connecting much to one another’s EHRs
Even though doctors have adopted electronic health records at a rapid pace during the last few years, few are meaningfully connected in a way that would grant them to share information from their EHRs with hospitals, payers and other physicians, according to a new report. However, doctors and others state getting connected soon is necessary for success under new practice and pay models.
According to a survey and report released in June by the ratings service Black Book Rankings, 97% of doctors and 80% of hospitals are meaningfully unconnected, which means they are not exchanging information regularly through a sustainable health information exchange. That is defined as an HIE of sufficient geographic scope that allows access to hundreds of doctors and hundreds of thousands of patient records, and allows other functions such as electronic prescribing and lab result access.
Black Book Rankings interviewed about 4,000 health care delivery and insurance organization leaders for a report meant to rate the ideal health information exchange vendors. The report did not specify how many doctors were interviewed.
HIEs, regional networks that connect physicians, hospitals and insurers, are considered the underpinning of a national health information network. They are funded initially with public money and allows but are expected to be supported privately by their users once they are up and running. However, in many cases, the networks cant sustain themselves after the public money and allows run out. Black Book Rankings noted that one in five of operating HIEs merged or ceased operations in 2011.
The struggle comes even though 94% of those surveyed stated private, community-based HIEs are the preferred choice to ensure success under such models as accountable care organizations, in which practices can get bonuses for improving patients health while slicing costs. Meaningful use incentives from the federal government are meant to ensure that doctors have the capability of sharing information, even though that doesnt necessarily mean they actually are doing so.
The uncertain sustainability of private HIEs has caused some health care organizations to delay the implementation of HIE infrastructure, despite the strategic importance to ACO development, the report said.
The report pointed out that the acknowledgment of a need for strong HIEs, as well as physicians escalating rate of installing EHRs, should get more doctors connected.
According to Black Book Rankings, 67% of all primary care doctors surveyed had a basic EHR, which under the federal governments definition means it includes patient history and demographics; a problem or diagnosis list; doctor notes; medications; allergies; electronic prescribing; and the capability to view laboratory and imaging results electronically. That is up from 15% in 2008.
Breaking down doctor demographics by practice size, urban or rural setting, and region of the United States, the only group in which more than 25% of doctors had no EHR at all was rural physicians, 69% of whom do not have such systems.
Copyright 2012 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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Submited at Tuesday, June 19th, 2012 at 11:00 pm on Uncategorized by hilman
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