Exclusive survey: EHR adoption - Fewer primary care physicians using electronic patient data than previously indicated

Exclusive survey: EHR adoption - Fewer primary care physicians using electronic patient data than previously indicated - ModernMedicine

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The number of primary care physicians who have electronic health records (aka electronic medical records) is growing fast, but EHR users, at 15 percent, are still a small minority of all generalists. Those are the most important conclusions of a unique Medical Economics survey of family physicians, internists, ob/gyns, and pediatricians about their use of computerized patient records.

One doctor in four plans to buy an EHR soon

While our results show EHR penetration to be lower than what other surveys indicate, our poll differed in important respects from other studies. First, our survey used a specific definition of an EHR. Doctors were asked if they had "a computerized record system that requires you to enter data on patient encounters in such a way that each piece of data can be searched for individually." In contrast, other recent surveys have used ambiguous definitions, raising "concerns over whether these studies are overgeneralizing the true rate of [EHR] adoption," according to an October 2003 report from the California HealthCare Foundation.

Second, some of the other surveys—including one done by the Medical Group Management Association—were tilted toward medium-sized and large group practices. Medical Economics polled physicians in all types of practice settings on a randomized basis.

Bigger groups are better connected

We mailed the surveys in August 2004 to 10,000 office-based MDs and DOs. While there may have been some selection bias in the 1,916 physicians who returned usable questionnaires, experts suggest that that would tend to overstate the number of physicians who have EHRs. So our estimate of EHR usage is probably a bit higher than the real percentage of doctors who have electronic health records.

There's no doubt, however, that EHR adoption is growing fast. Of the doctors who say they're using an EHR, fully half have had them for less than two years. Moreover, 23 percent of respondents say they plan to acquire an EHR within the next 12 months.

EHR owners are bullish about return on investment

The charts and tables that follow provide more data from our survey, and to put a face to the numbers, we've interspersed the stories of three different physicians and the very different approaches they've taken to incorporating an EHR in their practices.

Who is the typical EHR user?

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