According to a recent survey, physician offices that are owned by hospitals and health systems are leading the adoption of EHRs. As one consultant said, this survey result is not surprising at all.
Certainly the relaxation of the Stark Safe Harbor Laws has contributed to the willingness of hospitals to reach out to local physician groups. It also helped physician groups feel more comfortable having a large system subsidize their EHR adoption.
There are underlying drivers to those trends, as well. With the continuing economic recession and increasing competitive market, hospitals are seeking closer relationships and partnerships with local physician groups to gain referrals and to retain and expand their patient base.
Subsidies aside, physician offices are relying on the depth and breadth of hospital IT departments to help maintain their EHR systems.
The concepts of patient-centered medical homes (PCMH) and accountable care organizations (ACO) are also becoming trends as the industry seeks cost-efficient, higher-quality approaches to the delivery of care. Two goals of PCMHs and ACOs is ensuring coordination of care and the elimination of care gaps when patients are transferred from inpatient to outpatient. When you have an EHR system that connects hospital to physician office, you have the infrastructure for coordination of care.
If the industry does indeed embrace those concepts, health systems and local physician offices that share EHR systems will be in a prime position to take advantage of those models. Certainly when the payment component is in place, they will be in great, competitive and financial shape.
Another predictable data point is that physician offices with more exam rooms, more physicians on staff and higher patient volumes have the highest EHR adoption rates. This seems to be a testament to the belief that EHRs streamline the workflow.
It would be interesting to delve more into the reasons behind Minnesota (62.6 percent), Utah (55.4 percent) and Wisconsin (52.3 percent) being the top three leading states for EHR adoption. These states are less populous than other states, of course. If anyone has insight into this, please share.
Photo by adam @ ecadamf via Creative Commons license.
