BY J. MICHAEL BRODIE
WEB
EXTRA! Tech firms support core principles of
Academy's EHR initiative  AAFP President Michael Fleming, M.D., shows off features of one electronic health records system as part of a briefing for congressional staff. |
The AAFP went to bat for family physicians recently as it sought to prevent Congress from creating unnecessary regulations for using electronic health record systems.
The topic: AAFP's new Partners for Patients initiative that brings FPs hardware and software for EHR systems at 15 percent to 50 percent discounts (prices have prevented many FPs from adopting EHRs, FPs said in a 2003 survey).
The site: Capitol Hill.
The audience: about 30 congressional aides, the folks who draft the legislation members of Congress enact -- or don't enact.
With that last thought in mind, Academy leaders, together with representatives of firms in AAFP's EHR partnership, presented their EHR vision to congressional aides Feb. 13.
The goal was to fend off burdensome regulations by showing Congress what is already being done without federal involvement.
David C. Kibbe, M.D., director of the AAFP Center for Health Information Technology, described EHR systems as "a hot topic." He and AAFP President Michael Fleming, M.D., of Shreveport, La., urged Congress to work with the AAFP and other groups to develop universal EHR implementation standards.
"People are looking at this as way too big of a problem," Kibbe said. "We have made enormous progress primarily because we have kept it simple."
"This is health care that is happening now," said Fleming.
FP makes it happen
Robert Collins, M.D., of Starkville, Miss., said in an interview after the briefing that his practice has used an EHR system for seven years.
"We did it (implemented an EHR system) because it was something we felt we needed to do," said Collins, director of the student health center at Mississippi State University, located near Starkville. "Time is money for anybody, and if you are trying to make a living in family medicine, you have got to be more efficient."
Collins agreed that cost could be a barrier to physicians considering the purchase of an EHR system. "If the government is going to mandate it, they had better have reimbursement because it is not cheap," he said. "If you're going to ask docs to cough up six figures for this, they are going to need help."
Collins' EHR system, he said, has helped cut down on mistakes. For example,
what he adds to a patient's record is clearer, he said. "There should not
be any doubt about what I was thinking with a particular patient."
Tech experts brief aides
Speakers at the congressional staff briefing included Alan Zuckerman M.D., director of primary care informatics in the family medicine department at Georgetown University, Washington, and Mark Leavitt, medical director for the Health Information and Management Systems Society.
"What we are looking at here is a big step beyond the paper charts," said Zuckerman. "We are trying to get rid of unnecessary work."
Leavitt said, "We don't have an optimal marketplace. We have chaos and it is crying out for leadership." But he quickly warned the gathering, "Regulation does not necessarily make things cheaper."
To reach writer J. Michael Brodie, e-mail mbrodie@aafp.org.
FP Report is published by the AAFP
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Copyright © 2004 by
American Academy of Family Physicians.