When you read articles about physicians who aren't going to make the switch to electronic health records, it's always interesting to note the age of the nay-sayers. I'm not trying to start a war between generations, but age has a lot to do with refusal to adopt health IT.
Of course, there are a number of physicians who are over the age of 55 who have adopted health IT or will be implementing them. And there are a number of physicians who don't want to adopt for various reasons, and age has nothing to do with it. I don't mean to make sweeping generalizations.
That said, take a look at the ages of physicians today. Currently, 744,000 doctors practice medicine in the United States, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. But 250,000 - one in three - are over the age of 55 and are likely to retire during the next 20 years, according to the AAMC's report, "Help Wanted: More U.S. Doctors Projections Indicate America Will Face Shortage of M.D.s by 2020."
It makes sense that older physicians, like the 66-year-old internist and geriatrician in the Boston Globe article, would not be bothered with a steep learning curve, workflow disruption, upfront costs and the time it takes to get an ROI, especially when they are a few years from retirement. When you take into account that one in three doctors are over the age of 55, it makes sense that the EHR adoption rate is abysmally low. The upfront costs and liabilities outweigh many of the benefits that won't be realized until later, after they have retired.
I don't know what the average age is of doctors who adopt EHRs, but I'm sure they trend to the younger side. Medical schools are graduating doctors with health IT experience. This is becoming the norm. David Blumenthal, MD, head of ONC, has repeatedly said EHR adoption will hinge on health IT being a part of physician professionalism and doctors wanting to be competitive.
EHR adoption will naturally grow because of these factors. HHS should try to figure out how to reach the older physicians who aren't deploying EHRs because it doesn't make business sense in the short term.
