Ambulatory survey shows slight uptick in EHR use
By, Andis Robeznieks
A government survey indicates there was an 18.7% increase in the use of electronic health-record systems in physician offices to 41.5% in 2008 from 34% in 2007, but preliminary results for 2009 show only a slight increase up to 43.9%.
Doctors were asked, “Does this practice use electronic medical records or electronic health records (not including billing records)?” with options for answering “all electronic,” “part paper and part electronic,” “no” or “don’t know.”
A “basic” system was defined as including patient demographic information, “patient problem lists,” clinical notes, orders for prescriptions and applications for viewing laboratory and imaging results. A “fully functional’ system, also included functions for medical histories and follow-ups, test ordering, electronic prescribing, drug interaction alerts, flagging “out of range” test levels, and reminders for guideline-based interventions.
In 2008, about 16.7% of the practices reported having met the requirements of a basic system compared with 11.8% in 2007 and 10.5% in 2006; while only 4.4% had fully functional systems in 2008 compared with 3.8% in 2007 and 3.1% in 2006. Preliminary data for 2009 show these numbers increasing to 20.5% and 6.3%, respectively.
The National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey is conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. It included a sample of 3,200 “nonfederal office-based” physicians selected for in-person interviews conducted between Dec. 31, 2007, and Dec. 28, 2008, and 2,000 similar physicians who were selected for a mail-in survey conducted from April 2008 through August 2008. A combined response rate of 64% was reported. A response rate of 74% was reported for another mail-in survey sent to 2,000 doctors starting in March 2009 through June 2009. Anesthesiologists, pathologists and radiologists were excluded.
Above article publish on http://www.modernhealthcare.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100111/REG/301119979
Filed under: EHR, Electronic Health Records on February 15th, 2010
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