Fwd: qotd: Physician outcry on EHR functionality and costs

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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: qotd: Physician outcry on EHR functionality and costs
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2014 13:51:42 -0800
From: Don McCanne <don@mccanne.org>
To: Quote-of-the-Day <quote-of-the-day@mccanne.org>



Medical Economics
February 10, 2014
Physician outcry on EHR functionality, cost will shake the health
information technology sector
By Daniel R. Verdon

Despite the government's bribe of nearly $27 billion to digitize patient
records, nearly 70% of physicians say electronic health record (EHR)
systems have not been worth it. It's a sobering statistic backed by
newly released data from marketing and research firm MPI Group and
Medical Economics that suggest nearly two-thirds of doctors would not
purchase their current EHR system again because of poor functionality
and high costs.

* Nearly 45% of physicians from the national survey report spending
more than $100,000 on an EHR.

* Nearly 79% of respondents in practices with more than 10 physicians
said their EHR investment was not worth the effort, resources and cost.

* 73% of the largest practices would not purchase their current EHR
system. The data show that 66% of internal medicine specialists would
not purchase their current system. About 60% of respondents in family
medicine would also make another EHR choice.

* 67% of physicians dislike the functionality of their EHR systems.

* 45% of respondents say patient care is worse since implementing an EHR.

* 65% of respondents say their EHR systems result in financial losses
for the practice.

* About 69% of respondents said that coordination of care with
hospitals has not improved.

The national survey underscores the major disconnect between the current
state of EHR software and the needs of physicians.

http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/medical-economics/news/physician-outcry-ehr-functionality-cost-will-shake-health-information-technol


Comment: Congress keeps coming up with schemes to try to control health
care costs. Establishing financial incentives for electronic health
records (EHRs) appears to be just one more example where Congress has
again fallen short, based on this report of physician outcry over EHR
functionality and costs.

It's too bad. Members of Congress have before them a model that has been
proven to be effective in controlling costs - a single payer national
health program or "Improved Medicare for All." If we had such a system
in place then other improvements such as a health information technology
system (HIT) could be developed in a coordinated manner that would
better serve patients and their physicians.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
was established under President George W. Bush, but existed primarily to
only encourage the private sector to work together to coordinate their
systems. That is asking a lot of competitors that each want to have the
dominant system in the market while making sure that competitors'
systems would not be compatible, so they could have the whole thing. The
profit incentives in the private, fragmented EHR marketplace are
considerably different from the patient care incentives that led to the
successful VistA EHRs for the VA Health system - a concept developed by
the National Center for Health Services Research and Development of the
U.S. Public Health Service (now AHRQ).

Some may cite the boondoggle with the startup of the ACA insurance
exchanges as an example of the incompetence of the government in such
matters, but it was the government's reliance on the private sector that
resulted in the problems that we saw and are still seeing. Congress
should enact a single payer system now so that we'll have something to
work with for the betterment of efficient patient care.