Survey: Most Physicians Satisfied With EHRs, but Cost Concerns Remain

Most ambulatory care physician practices that have implemented electronic health record systems are satisfied with their purchases, especially if they have optimized their EHRs since installing them, according to a survey by the Medical Group Management Association, Modern Healthcare reports.

MGMA collected data for the survey last year between Oct. 1 and Nov. 9 from a variety of health care settings, including independent practices, integrated delivery system-owned practices and community health centers (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 4/6). The online survey drew responses from 4,588 practices representing 120,000 physicians (Monegain, Healthcare IT News, 4/5).

Key Findings

According to the survey:

• 86% of physician practice respondents that had fully optimized their EHR systems were "satisfied" or "fully satisfied";
• 72% of respondents that had completed EHR system implementation were either "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their systems; and
• 61% of respondents reporting full optimization indicated their systems had increased both productivity and practice revenue.

The survey also found that fully optimizing EHR systems led to greater financial benefits (Modern Healthcare, 4/6).

In addition, the survey found that independent medical practices were more likely to have fully implemented and optimized EHR systems than hospital-owned practices.
David Gans -- vice president of research and innovation at MGMA -- said this finding illustrates the complexities that larger organizations have to deal with in implementing EHRs.

Gans said, "[I]ntegrated systems are much more complex environments than independent physician practices and their information systems often have to encompass both inpatient and physician components."

Results Related to Meaningful Use

The survey found that 80.1% of practices that already have adopted EHRs intend to participate in the meaningful use program, which provides Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments to health care providers for using EHRs in a meaningful way (Healthcare IT News, 4/5).

Meanwhile, health care providers with fully optimized systems said a lack of interoperability functions could hinder efforts to meet meaningful use rules, the survey found (Modern Healthcare, 4/6).

Among medical practices that already have adopted EHRs, 13.6% said they are ready to attest to meeting all 15 core requirements in the meaningful use program.

Concerns Associated With EHR Implementation

According to the survey, 53.2% of respondents reported they either "mildly" or "severely" under-allocated the time needed to provide training on their EHR systems.
Of respondents that still were using paper-based records:

• More than 78% said they thought they would face a "significant" or "very significant" loss of productivity during EHR implementation;
• 71.7% pointed to "insufficient capital resources" as a barrier to investing in EHR systems; and
• 56.9% said "insufficient expected return on investment" was a barrier to investing in EHR systems (Healthcare IT News, 4/6).

Read more: http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2011/4/6/survey-most-physicians-satisfied-with-ehrs-but-cost-concerns-remain.aspx#ixzz1Im3oE8RB