Promoting Electronic Health Record Use

In an article published in the New York Times on June 19, 2008 “Most Doctors Aren’t Using Electronic Health Records,” author Steve Lohr observes that using electronic systems in health services delivery can improve accuracy, reduce costs, and facilitate information sharing. Yet the cost of implementation in small practices (1-3 physicians), which account for half of the medical care practices in the US, has been prohibitive such that only 9% of them are using electronic records. The article goes on to describe government intervention, including $150 million project, which offers small practices to make the transition.

How can we increase the number of physicians who use healthcare IT, so that the benefits of more accurate care, lower costs, and information sharing become widespread? It seems we need more than just a government intervention. One place is in medical school: though many physicians in training have an already packed curriculum, the students are so driven for good patient care and efficient results, that it’s a good place for them to get exposure to the merits of healthcare IT before the opportunity costs of changing while already in practice kicks in. Since many students are in medical school associated with large university medical centers, it might mean they have exposure to the enterprise packages, such as Epic Systems or Cerner, and it is probably hard to see the whole picture when working with just one module on rotation. So bearing all the benefits in mind would help. I think making EHR use a reality depends somewhat on initiatives such as these. I strongly suspect that IT soloutions companies would also be willing to chip in towards creating a curriculum unit on IT in healthcare.