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Survey results
Family docs climb aboard EHR train

BY SHERI PORTER

Family physicians' interest in implementing electronic health record systems in their practices is picking up steam. At least that's what FPs told their AAFP constituent chapters in a May survey.

Nearly 40 percent of respondents are either completely converted to EHRs or in the process. Seventeen percent of the 788 survey respondents had completely converted to EHRs, while another 13 percent reported that most of their patient information was entered into an EHR. Some 9 percent are in the early phases of implementing an EHR.

David C. Kibbe, M.D., director of the Academy's Center for Health Information Technology, was encouraged by the recently released survey data.

"If this pattern holds and the AAFP gives the EHR initiative a bit of a push, we will actually reach our 50 percent target in 2005 or perhaps early 2006," he said, referring to AAFP's goal to have 50 percent of active members using EHRs by the end of 2005.

One of the most gratifying statistics -- at least to folks who have been encouraging physicians to adopt EHRs for the sake of their patients' good health -- was this: Out of the 310 respondents with EHRs, 73 percent said their EHR systems improved the health of their patients. How? In part by reducing prescribing errors and enhancing patient communication.

Other survey findings:

• 65 percent of physicians with an EHR used a database of selected health information to look up some patient health information;
• 49 percent of survey participants wanted to purchase an EHR, 15 percent of those within one year, 16 percent within two years and 18 percent after two years;
• only 7 percent of respondents had no plans to buy an EHR; and
• of the 447 responding FPs who didn't have an EHR system, 83 percent said that the cost was too high, and 42 percent cited burdensome technology.

Kibbe tempered his enthusiasm for the survey results with the reality that members answering an online survey are usually the "online community of physicians," or those most likely tuned in to the EHR issue.

But, from Kibbe's viewpoint, there was no denying the good news in this statistic: 24 percent of members who reported owning an EHR system had purchased the system in the past six months.

"This is the first real data suggesting members are purchasing systems in large numbers," he said. "We're now getting data saying members are buying and implementing, and that helps verify more subjective information we have that the EHR train is moving out of the station, and our physicians are onboard."

To reach writer Sheri Porter, e-mail sporter@aafp.org.

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FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2004 by American Academy of Family Physicians.

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