Dive Brief:
- Doctors who use EHRs and other IT-related tools to coordinate care are not getting significantly better information than those not using health IT, according to a press release announcing a new study published in Medical Care.
- Despite the fact that more than 70% of US physicians use EHRs, nearly half don't receive the patient information they need for coordinated care, the study concluded. Further, many of those physicians aren't even using the EHR systems they own. About 33% of physicians with EHRs actually used them to share patient health information electronically, while another 39% who have EHRs did not share patient data electronically at all.
- One of the most jarring conclusions in the study was that no matter how the patient health information was trafficked, more than one-third of the 4,500 office-based physicians surveyed weren't getting the data they needed to adequately care for the patient.
Dive Insight:
Although some may use the results of this study to criticize the integration of EHRs, the more likely scenario is that it's not the technology's fault, but the culture's. Despite many years of pressure to embrace them, physicians still dislike and prefer to work around the EHRs pushed upon them in the workplace.
As the American College of Physicians pointed out recently, most EHR platforms are hard to use and do little if anything to support patients. Put another way, while it may be true that health IT can improve patient care and create positive outcomes, most physicians aren't seeing the big picture.
What this study truly uncovered was the cavalier manner in which patient records, information and data are managed by most practices. If more than one-third of that survey group wasn't getting all the information they needed for coordinated care, regardless of the delivery method of the information, then the problem is bigger than paper vs. electronic data management.