Why are doctors afraid of moving to EHR’s? Fear of losing productivity, mainly
April 14th, 2011 § 1 Comment
More scuttlebutt and chatter about the EHR adoption survey done by MGMA I mentioned a few weeks back. Below is a synopsis from a good resource I just learned about. But hey, Uncle Sugar knows that it will hurt to go from your paper and Word (or Wordperfect) patient record system to an EHR solution. That’s why the Feds are offering 44K now, and 39K if the practice makes the change 2013. Anyway:
Productivity was the pervasive issue. The only group that reported some productivity gains was the 16.3% self-proclaimed “optimized users” of EHRs—those who have had sufficient time following implementation to master the EHR. (The report did not define “sufficient time.”) Among this group, 41% reported that physician productivity has increased. What is disturbing about this statistic, however, is the implication of the converse—that even among these most accomplished EHR users, the majority of physicians (59%) are seeing a decrease, or at best no increase, in productivity. For the total population studied, 43% have just worked their way back up to where they were before implementation, and 31% of respondents are experiencing an actual productivity decrease.
Productivity was the major factor accounting for why 8% of survey participants are in the process of replacing their EHR with another, while anticipated productivity loss was reported as the most significant barrier to EHR implementation for physicians still using paper charts. Among these paper users, 78% fear productivity loss during implementation and 67% worry about the effect even after the transition to an EHR.
This data confirms past experience regarding productivity loss and raises these critical questions:
- Why do only 16.3% of EHR owners categorize themselves as “optimizing their use of an EHR”?
- While government incentives will certainly address the financing concerns expressed by small practices, how will this money address the productivity obstacle for all adopters?
- What accounts for the loss of productivity?
- When technology has replaced an antiquated paper process in other industries, it has always brought increases in productivity. How do we deliver the same results in healthcare?
Like this:
Tagged: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, barriers to EHR adoption, EHR implementation, electronic medical records, EMR electronic health records, federal, meaningful use
I found this blog post to be very interesting read! I believe that hospitals and other medical facilities changing from paper to electronics may be initially experiencing a difficult transition. However, I also believe that transferring to EHRs would actually increase productivity- eliminating the redundancy that is associated with paper processes. I find it staggering that 59 percent of healthcare facilities found at best, no change in productivity. Overall, these statistics make me wonder what factors are contributing to and are consistent with the negative reactions towards EHR. For those interested in additional information regarding EHRs and other healthcare technologies and testimonials, check out our website.