Healthcare Providers Have EHRs, Need Advanced Use Of IT

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

Data from a survey conducted by the American Hospital Association in its 2013 Annual Survey IT Supplement reveals that most hospitals use basic EHR (electronic health records) systems, but lack advanced use of healthcare IT.

The study (available with paid access in the August issue of Health Affairs), highlighted the following points,

• 59 percent of hospitals have a basic or comprehensive EHR system (quadruple the figure from 2010).
• Nearly 26 percent of hospitals have a comprehensive EHR system (more than quintuple the figure from 2010).
• While the majority of hospitals can meet many of the Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements, only 5.8 percent of hospitals are able to meet all of those criteria

Penalties for not meeting the Stage 2 requirements will begin fiscal year 2015, and are derived from the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, passed in 2009. (The act provided $30 billion for the promotion of the use of EHRs through the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program.)

Study author Peter Kralovec is quoted as saying, “The data shows that hospitals are on the road to robust healthcare IT adoption, but a long journey remains. With financial penalties now being levied against hospitals that do not meet Stage 2 requirements, the onus is on both hospitals and IT vendors to ensure that patients can use technology to access their health information and transfer their health records easily from provider to facility.”

Missed Opportunities

Advanced use of healthcare IT is about much more than government compliance. Healthcare Organizations stand to gain much for themselves, their patients and their health communities by making proactive use of the data they collect.

For example, EHRs have been found to be useful in predicting clinical outcomes around a range of diseases and conditions. These include calculating the likelihood of death from sepsis (as demonstrated by a study out of the University of California, Davis), creating models based on laboratory data from nephrology clinic EHRs that could be used to predict progression to kidney failure in patients with chronic kidney diseases between stages three and five, and using flexible, adaptive statistical methods to improve prediction of cardiovascular risk.

Advanced EHR search capabilities have also been found to reduce unnecessary testing and wasted time in a clinical environment. A study published by the Journal Of The American College Of Radiology addresses the application of advanced search engine functionality to clinical environments, specifically the emergency department. Benefits include:

• near instantaneous searches of the entire EHR on the basis of a clinical question
• automation of complex, structured queries on the basis of clinical service schedule or care unit census
• ability to easily integrate the results of a search into a web browser or other software application
• ability to measure reproducible context-specific stimulus-response patterns of clinicians responding to presentation of EHR information

Going Deeper

To learn more about ways to discuss EHR upgrades with your clients, read, “3 EHR Data Questions Your Healthcare Clients Are Asking Today”.