Making Nice With EHRs
Making Nice With EHRs
Harken back to the heady days of 2007. Home prices were at all-time highs. J.K. Rowling's final installment in the Harry Potter series was relished and lamented by spellbound fans. The world was introduced to the iPhone®, provided that you were willing to wait in line, had $499, and went along with the obligatory data plan.
And, according to recent data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Health Statistics Reports, this was also a year when only 35% of office-based physicians reported using something that resembled an electronic health record (EHR) (a so-called "basic" EHR), whereas 4% reported using a fully functional EHR, the latter loosely defined at the time as something more than a word-processing program that could transmit electronic prescriptions and remind clinicians of scheduled screening tests.
Since 2007, our world has obviously changed. For EHRs, a couple of patterns have become clearer, and one fact, for better or worse, is indisputable: They are here to stay.
The CDC reported in 2012 that nearly 72% of office-based physicians were using a basic EHR (compared with 35% in 2007). Approximately one quarter (24%) were using a fully functional EHR (compared with 4% in 2007). Of note, the report found greater EHR adoption among:
• Generalists vs specialists;
• Larger groups (more than 11 physicians) vs small groups (or solo practices);
• Employer-based practices vs independent, physician-owned practices;
• Multispecialty vs single-specialty practices; and
• Younger physicians vs more seasoned physicians.
As a pediatrician, I thought that the Medscape EHR Report 2014, a survey of more than 18,000 physicians across 25 specialties about their EHR use, made for an interesting read. Pediatrics is a rich area for incorporating EHRs into our role of taking better care of our unique population of patients, and I wondered what we pediatricians could glean from the new results.
The survey asked participants to rate their EHR systems according to a range of parameters, from ease of use to cost to connectivity, using a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). What do these results say about how we incorporate an EHR into our workflow of seeing patients? Here's my take on the survey results.
EHRs Are Here to Stay
Harken back to the heady days of 2007. Home prices were at all-time highs. J.K. Rowling's final installment in the Harry Potter series was relished and lamented by spellbound fans. The world was introduced to the iPhone®, provided that you were willing to wait in line, had $499, and went along with the obligatory data plan.
And, according to recent data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Health Statistics Reports, this was also a year when only 35% of office-based physicians reported using something that resembled an electronic health record (EHR) (a so-called "basic" EHR), whereas 4% reported using a fully functional EHR, the latter loosely defined at the time as something more than a word-processing program that could transmit electronic prescriptions and remind clinicians of scheduled screening tests.
Since 2007, our world has obviously changed. For EHRs, a couple of patterns have become clearer, and one fact, for better or worse, is indisputable: They are here to stay.
The CDC reported in 2012 that nearly 72% of office-based physicians were using a basic EHR (compared with 35% in 2007). Approximately one quarter (24%) were using a fully functional EHR (compared with 4% in 2007). Of note, the report found greater EHR adoption among:
• Generalists vs specialists;
• Larger groups (more than 11 physicians) vs small groups (or solo practices);
• Employer-based practices vs independent, physician-owned practices;
• Multispecialty vs single-specialty practices; and
• Younger physicians vs more seasoned physicians.
As a pediatrician, I thought that the Medscape EHR Report 2014, a survey of more than 18,000 physicians across 25 specialties about their EHR use, made for an interesting read. Pediatrics is a rich area for incorporating EHRs into our role of taking better care of our unique population of patients, and I wondered what we pediatricians could glean from the new results.
The survey asked participants to rate their EHR systems according to a range of parameters, from ease of use to cost to connectivity, using a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). What do these results say about how we incorporate an EHR into our workflow of seeing patients? Here's my take on the survey results.
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