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Health Care Providers Failing To Adopt e-Records, Says RAND
Nerval's Lobster writes "Back in 2005, RAND Corporation published an analysis suggesting that hospitals and other health-care facilities could save more than $81 billion a year by adopting electronic health records. While e-records have earned a ton of buzz, the reality hasn't quite worked out: seven years later, RAND's new study suggests that health care providers have largely failed to upgrade their respective IT systems in a way that allows them to take full advantage of e-records. Meanwhile, the health care system in the United States continues to waste hundreds of billions of dollars a year, by some estimates. 'The failure of health information technology to quickly deliver on its promise is not caused by its lack of potential, but rather because of the shortcomings in the design of the IT systems that are currently in place,' Dr. Art Kellerman, senior author of the RAND study, wrote in a Jan. 7 statement. Slow pace of adoption, he added, has further delayed the productivity gains from e-records."
It has been my experience that every health care provider that I have dealt with that offers electronic records, also charges you an "administrative fee" to get a copy of said records at over $1 per page (regardless if it is an electronic document emailed to you).
Need an example? Altoona Regional Health System
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
I'm contracting in the industry right now, and... The problem with e-records is draconian HIPAA requirements. Also all our systems have to be able to pass an audit by the FDA, meaning if I add a piece of javascript to check for numerics... re-validation! I'm not saying the government should back down, medical records need to be private, but they've got IT management and senior staff here trembling at the mention of their existence. Supposedly, it's kept the main production system from being update for the last couple of decades or so simply because nobody wants to take on the responsibility of potentially getting the business shut down... then again that's operations, and they can be a bit dirka dir, but it's definitely a problem from both sides of the fence.
My physician's office explicitly tells me why they stick with paper-only records: They don't want to deal with the data security mess. They are a medical office, not an IT shop.
Amazingly after all these years on paper records, I don't get double-billed, I've never had a problem between them and the insurance company, and they manage to handle my billing in a timely manner.
Go figure.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
That would be a good idea. But you know why it doesn't happen?
Because the various competing "e-record" systems providers don't WANT an open standard. There is FAR more money to be made in proprietary systems, and expensive "translation layers" to talk to OTHER proprietary systems.
Basically, we don't have e-records because the healthcare system in this country is riddled with greed. Efficiency and quality are NOT a priority, and in fact, are generally DISCOURAGED.
I am a physician and operate a small practice. The issue for my practice is simply the cost. To make the switch I will have to invest thousands in IT upgrades, and pay thousands of dollars every year for the privilege of continuing to use the software. Further, if this slows me down to the point that I see one fewer patient per day, it will cost me an additional $10,000+ per year in lost revenue. I'm sure an EMR would streamline things for insurance companies, but my practice will see none of the benefits. I feel I provide high quality care with my current system and I don't believe a different record system will improve that. At the end of the day, switching to an EMR means a huge paycut with no improvement in patient care. I just don't see how that makes sense.