EMR, HIE Use Up Sharply In U.S.
A new survey by Accenture has concluded that the number of U.S. doctors using EMRs — either in their practice or at a hospital — has climbed to over 90 percent, and that almost half are using HIEs. More than half of doctors surveyed (60%) report using an EMR in their own medical practice.
The Accenture survey reached out to 3,700 doctors in eight countries, including Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Singapore, Spain and the U.S. Data showed a spike in healthcare IT usage across all of the countries surveyed.
In the U.S., doctors had the biggest increase in adoption demonstrated in the survey, up 32 percent in routine use of health IT capabilities, as opposed to an average increase of 15 percent among non-U.S. clinicians, reports HealthcareIT News.
Other standout activities were e-prescribing (65 percent using) and entering patient notes into EMRs (78 percent), a 34 percent annual increase between 2011 and 2012. Forty-five percent of physicians also use IT for basic clinical tasks such as getting alerts while seeing patients (45 percent), according to Healthcare IT News.
Healthcare IT News also caught an interesting detail around lab orders. The magazine notes that 57 percent of U.S. doctors said they regularly use electronic lab orders (a 21 percent annual increase) the volume of physicians doing so internationally dropped 6 percent.
Globally, the number of doctors who “routinely” access clinical data on patients seen by different health organizations has climbed by 42 percent, from 33 percent of doctors in 2011 to 47 percent in 2012. Spain was the leader by a significant margin, with 69 percent of doctors routinely accessing such data.
The study also concluded that internationally, almost 60 percent of doctors customarily enter patient notes electronically either during or after consults.
On the other hand, so-called “digital doctors” are still unlikely to connect or transact electronically with outside organizations. Accenture found that only 10 percent of physicians communicate electronically to support remote consults/diagnostics, and that roughly 20 percent e-prescribe, receive notifications of patients’ interactions with other health organizations and communicate electronically with clinicians in other organizations.
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