The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), signed into law in February 2009, has certainly created a flurry of interest in Electronic Health Record (EHRs). HITECH encourages the adoption of EHRs by offering to reimburse physicians for “meaningful use of certified EHRs” as a supplement to Medicare payments totaling up to $44,000 (paid out over the period from 2011 through 2015).
So, has there been a stampede of physicians rushing to buy EHR systems? No. Why not? Mainly it stems from fear of spending time and money on the “wrong” system. The starting point (the status quo) is a very low level of EHR adoption – according to the landmark study published by the New England Journal of Medicine in 2008, only 4% of physicians report using a fully-functional EHR, and 13% use a basic system. The biggest barrier reported in the study was cost. In addition to cost, poor usability of the EHR products found in the marketplace have made them burdensome, and not worth the effort. The result of these obstacles has been the phenomenon where practices de-install their EHRs once they have used them for a while, despite the incentives to keep them.
A further factor contributing to the “wait and see” attitude seen by physicians currently is the uncertainty about how the federal Health IT process will play out. The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT has commissioned two committees to advise it – the Health IT Policy Committee and the HIT Standards Committee. The Policy Committee has worked out its definition of “meaningful use” after an open process of significant input from multiple stakeholders. The recommendations won’t be official until adopted by CMS (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) in January 2010. The HIT Standards Committee is still deliberating on the definition of “certified EHR.” It is an arena for continuing debate around linking certification to “meaningful use” and determining the going-forward role of CCHIT (the industry-created legacy certification organization previously designated as the sole source of certification by the government heretofore). The debate over these issues will continue to unfold over the course of the remainder of 2009.
Given these uncertainties, should a physician adopt an EHR now? Or should he/she wait? Practice Fusion represents an emerging technology where the EHR offered is web-based and hosted (therefore eliminating the server-side cost and headaches of a locally-installed system, while maintaining data security and privacy). In addition, Practice Fusion offers its EHR in a way that is free to the physician end-user (subsidized by alternative revenue streams, including ads). Practice Fusion is participating closely in the ongoing discussion on the national stage, in order to ensure that its EHR offering will be “certified” and easy to use in a “meaningful” way. If the risks are removed, getting started with an EHR now makes sense – the sooner that a practice starts to use the electronic tools, and learn how to integrate these tools in ordinary day-to-day workflows, the sooner that the benefits of EHR use can materialize.
Robert Rowley, MD – Chief Medical Officer, Practice Fusion, Inc.
So, has there been a stampede of physicians rushing to buy EHR systems? No. Why not? Mainly it stems from fear of spending time and money on the “wrong” system. The starting point (the status quo) is a very low level of EHR adoption – according to the landmark study published by the New England Journal of Medicine in 2008, only 4% of physicians report using a fully-functional EHR, and 13% use a basic system. The biggest barrier reported in the study was cost. In addition to cost, poor usability of the EHR products found in the marketplace have made them burdensome, and not worth the effort. The result of these obstacles has been the phenomenon where practices de-install their EHRs once they have used them for a while, despite the incentives to keep them.A further factor contributing to the “wait and see” attitude seen by physicians currently is the uncertainty about how the federal Health IT process will play out. The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT has commissioned two committees to advise it – the Health IT Policy Committee and the HIT Standards Committee. The Policy Committee has worked out its definition of “meaningful use” after an open process of significant input from multiple stakeholders. The recommendations won’t be official until adopted by CMS (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) in January 2010. The HIT Standards Committee is still deliberating on the definition of “certified EHR.” It is an arena for continuing debate around linking certification to “meaningful use” and determining the going-forward role of CCHIT (the industry-created legacy certification organization previously designated as the sole source of certification by the government heretofore). The debate over these issues will continue to unfold over the course of the remainder of 2009.
Given these uncertainties, should a physician adopt an EHR now? Or should he/she wait? Practice Fusion represents an emerging technology where the EHR offered is web-based and hosted (therefore eliminating the server-side cost and headaches of a locally-installed system, while maintaining data security and privacy). In addition, Practice Fusion offers its EHR in a way that is free to the physician end-user (subsidized by alternative revenue streams, including ads). Practice Fusion is participating closely in the ongoing discussion on the national stage, in order to ensure that its EHR offering will be “certified” and easy to use in a “meaningful” way. If the risks are removed, getting started with an EHR now makes sense – the sooner that a practice starts to use the electronic tools, and learn how to integrate these tools in ordinary day-to-day workflows, the sooner that the benefits of EHR use can materialize.
Robert Rowley, MD – Chief Medical Officer, Practice Fusion, Inc.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment