Government takes pulse on healthcare IT uptake

Source: Healthcare IT News
Healthcare leaders mull ways to spur IT adoption in small practices

Feds to study healthcare IT adoption gap

Commonwealth Fund study on physicians’ IT uptake

WASHINGTON — The federal government by early fall will award a contract to measure adoption of information technology within the healthcare industry and better understand the areas of healthcare that have embraced technology and those that lag behind.

A number of studies have attempted to measure healthcare providers’ IT use, however, these studies used different criteria to measure adoption. The government hopes to establish a single benchmark to more accurately gauge the IT adoption gap in healthcare. The government has already released a request for proposals for the study to a list of government contractors, according to an HHS spokesperson.

The gap between the healthcare IT haves and have-nots is a topic that has long interested the nation’s healthcare IT czar, David J. Brailer, MD, who has expressed concern that small and rural physician practices face bigger barriers to paying for and implementing IT compared with their larger counterparts.

“We can’t tolerate an adoption gap,” Brailer has said in several speeches.
Brailer in April told a meeting of providers, payers and government healthcare leaders that technology adoption in small physician practices is key to the White House’s strategy to have most Americans using electronic health records within a decade.

“I can’t get to that goal without getting to the small physician practices,” Brailer told the group.

Recent studies suggest that smaller practices do fall behind in IT adoption. A 2003 study from the Commonwealth Fund found that 87 percent of large group practice physicians have access to electronic test results compared with 36 percent of solo-practice physicians. Physicians in large group practices are more likely than solo practitioners to use EMRs and other technology tools, according to the study.

The government in September also plans to award several contracts aimed at creating a national health information infrastructure and ensuring that healthcare providers nationwide can easily exchange data.