Study points to growing gap in rates of EHR adoption | EHR Watch

A study recently published in Health Affairs indicates that many hospitals are steadily toward the comprehensive use of EHRs.

But it also reveals that small, rural, and nonteaching hospitals are lagging behind their better positioned peers.

After pointing out that data is still not available to determine if, and by how much, the HITECH Act has accelerated the move to EHRs, the study’s authors turn to their assessment of data received from the American Hospital Association's annual survey of health information technology adoption from the period 2008–11. The data includes survey responses from over 2,600 acute care hospitals, or 58 percent of all acute care hospitals in the United States. And, on one level, the results are encouraging.

Study points to useful EHR improvements | EHR Watch

From improving population health to making our healthcare system more efficient, a lot is expected from the system-wide implementation of EHRs.

But at least one recent study suggests EHRs could use some improvements in order to live up to those expectations.

Published in January in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, the study examined the accuracy of EHRs when it comes to providing accurate clinical problem lists.

In the introduction to the report, researchers noted that “an accurate and up-to-date patient problem list represents the cornerstone of the problem-oriented medical record, especially in internal medicine. It serves as a valuable tool for providers attempting to familiarize themselves with a patient's clinical status and provides a means of succinctly communicating this information between providers. In addition, an accurate problem list has been associated with higher-quality care.”

Survey of cancer patients reveals desire to plug in | EHR Watch

Full disclosure: we’ve long been skeptical of the desire to get the public more plugged into managing their health information.

But a survey of cancer patients conducted this past winter may show a way forward for policymakers.

Our skepticism stems from the belief that, put simply, people have lives to live, and many, perhaps most, of us are inclined to put monitoring our health information pretty low on our daily “To do” list. So why, we’ve wondered since the MU Stage 2 regulations were proposed, hold doctors responsible?

All that said, for people who are actively fighting a disease, it makes sense that they should be given every chance to make use of new IT in order to be actively engaged in their own care. Moreover, at least when it comes to cancer patients, that subset of the population is, not surprisingly, ready to plug in.

Collaborative pushes access to patient info | EHR Watch

Does technology drive ideas, or do ideas drive technology?

The easy answer is probably “a little bit of both”, but allow us to explain why we ask in the first place?

A few weeks back, we looked at the observations of a Texas doctor who, to put it mildly, doesn’t think too much of current EHR technology. As he put it, “the majority of health care facilities and health care providers still think about medical records the same way they did 100 years ago – as property or proprietary information. A physical medical chart is considered to be the property of the facility or provider who generated the chart even though the patient is considered to be the “owner” of the information contained within the chart.”

Given that view, he notes in a follow-up post, “modern EMR design has advanced very little beyond being a hard drive replacement for the filing cabinet.”