Dive Brief:
- The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act has provided physicians with funding incentives to adopt EHRs via the meaningful use (MU) program established to improve healthcare outcomes. A new JAMIA study looked at how the MU program affected EHR adoption prior to the Act to provide a basis of comparison.
- Adoption of "Any" and "Basic" EHR systems in physicians offices using consistent data series for 2001 to 2013 and 2006 to 2013 were estimated to determine if adoption happened during a PrePay (2009 to 2010) period or PostPay (2011 to 2013) when payments were made.
- Adoption of any EHR system may have increased by 7% above the level predicted without MU subsidies. But, the authors note, the estimate lacks statistical significance and becomes smaller or negative under alternative model specifications. No substantial effects were found for Basic systems and the authors summarize that "adoption was largely driven by 'imitation' effects of physicians mimicking their peers' technology use or responding to mandates."
Dive Insight:
The study authors concluded that there was little evidence significant impact of the MU program on EHR adoption. "This is consistent with reports that many current EHR systems reduce physician productivity, lack data sharing capabilities, and need to incorporate other key interoperability features," they summarized.
A recent survey sponsored by Kareo, "Physicians Practice 2015 Technology Survey," found that 15% of 1,181 respondents said a drop in productivity due to their EHR was their biggest IT problem, followed by 14% who said interoperability between EHRs was problematic. EHR adoption and implementation ranked third with 14 %.
Additional post-EHR issues discovered by the survey included 68 percent who said EHR hasn't produced a return on investment, 37% see fewer patients post-EHR, 37% have yet to successfully attest to State 1 rules of meaningful use, and 21% said their EHR vendor hasn't met Stage 2 certification rules.