Will these kinds of studies be enough to promote further federal spending on EHR adoption?
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a national survey on July 18 on the use of electronic health records by office-based physicians. The results should help fuel the fire over any lasting debate as to whether stimulus package funding used to incentivize the use of EHRs was well spent.
The survey, conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that most office-based physicians who have adopted electronic health record (EHR) systems are satisfied with their system and say it has improved patient care.
According to the poll, 55 percent of responding physicians in 2011 said they have adopted at least some EHR technology in their practices. In addition, 85 percent of physicians who have adopted EHRs said they were somewhat (47 percent) or very (38 percent) satisfied with their EHR system. Additionally, a majority of the physicians said they would purchase their EHR systems again, further indicating their satisfaction with the new technology.
The study found that three-quarters of the physicians who have adopted EHRs reported that their system meets meaningful use requirements. Additionally, about three-fourths of the physicians who are using EHR technology said that using their system "enhanced overall patient care." Half of them said they had been alerted to critical lab results within the past 30 days by using the EHR system, and about 40 percent said they had been alerted to potential medication errors.
About three-fourths of the physicians also reported that they had accessed a patient's chart remotely within the past 30 days, which can be important to patient care when a need arises outside of office hours or the doctor is offsite, the study said.
As fierce partisan wrangling will only get more intense over the coming months prior to and after the election, any federal spending will have to justify itself more than ever. Both parties agree that domestic spending must be contained, and both parties have also expressed support for healthcare IT. Accountable care organizations - the fruit of the EHR adoption labor - has yet to prove itself on paper, and will likely be a point of attack should the GOP gain more power in Congress and the White House. Reports like this one will more than likely be used to defend an already thriving federal nationwide EHR adoption effort.
