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SRSsoft, an EMR vendor, put out an interesting press release putting the lost democratic senate seat in Massachusetts with healthcare reform and EHR adoption. Here’s a quote from the press release:

“The question is not whether we need healthcare reform,” says Evan Steele, CEO, SRSsoft. “Rather, the voters voiced their concern that reform must benefit consumers and physicians, not just government, insurance companies, and vendors. This election must open the government to input from all stakeholders, and that is a good sign for the constituents of SRS—the physicians—who feel that their voice is not being heard on healthcare reform and on EHR adoption.”

Honestly, I don’t see the change in the Senate seat affecting EMR adoption at all. However, I think it will have a big impact on healthcare reform. I’ve said before that the healthcare reform has opened our eyes to the government processes in ways we’d never seen before. I think that the HITECH act has done much of the same for those of us interested in EMR legislation and rule making.

Recent stimulus-induced EHR deals show sooner-than-expected adoption, especially in the hospital sector, according to investment firm Piper Jaffrey.

The second half of 2010 and all of 2011 are likely to show a large number of EHR deals, Piper Jaffrey analyst Sean Wieland wrote in his analysis Friday.

Wieland noted a growing trend of hospitals buying or subsidizing EHRs for physician practices.

“We continue to believe that mega-deals will continue as hospitals seek to capture first-mover advantage and HHS’ finalization of stimulus criteria will act as a catalyst for stand-alone physician/group practices to jump into the deal foray,” he said. -source

I’d be interested to know where Piper Jaffrey got their numbers that support their conclusion that EHR adoption showed better adoption in late 2010. I guess maybe they’re comparing their numbers to what they thought it would be. Maybe they expected adoption to be close to 0 and it was just over that.

I do think that Piper Jaffrey is dead on when they say that EHR deals will see a huge increase in 2010. It’s going to be the season for EHR adoption.

Do you think that the “mega-deals” involving hospitals subsidizing the EHR will be the reason?

People are always interested in learning what the adoption rates for EMR software are in the US. Chilmark recently posted about a Harvard School of Public Health study that was presented at the PHAT conference. This study focused on EMR adoption rates and the reasons that doctors and practice managers have chosen not to adopt an EMR, yet. Here’s a summary of the findings:

Hospital EMR

• 90% of Hospitals have no functional comprehensive EHR
• Mostly large hospitals and teaching hospitals do
• Top Barriers to EMR Adoption: Inadequate capital (73%), maintenance costs (44%) and physician resistance (36%)

Ambulatory EMR

• 83% do not have a functional EHR
• 17% stated they have purchased an EHR, but not implemented
• 26% plan to purchase an EMR in the next 2 years
• Top Barriers to EMR Adoption: lack of capital (67%), finding a system that meets their needs (54%) and uncertainty of ROI (51%)

Here’s a short summary of a survey on the impact of EHR adoption and the major challenges of EHR implementation:

Stamford, Conn.- based IVANS Inc., a provider of electronic communications services to insurance and healthcare companies, surveyed 508 healthcare providers throughout the United States in April 2009.

According to the survey providers do see the benefits of healthcare IT, with 66 percent of those surveyed believing that EHRs can have a positive impact on their business, and 74 percent believing EHRs can have a positive impact on the healthcare industry overall.

The biggest challenge to implementation cited by providers was, “lack of budget” (82 percent) followed by “lack of awareness and expertise.”

I’m not sure how well this survey was executed, but the results seem to match what I’ve experienced in the EHR industry as well.

Everyone knows that HIPAA rules the privacy world of healthcare.  However, each state actually has their own laws governing the privacy of patient data and in particular data stored in an EMR.  I recently came across an interesting study talking about how those states which have fewer privacy laws for patient data actually have higher EMR adoption rates.  Here’s a short section from the article:

State laws in place to protect patients’ confidentiality may be causing some hospitals to be more skittish about adopting electronic medical records systems, a factor that could impede the push for the industry to go paperless, a study says.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Virginia recently concluded that state privacy regulations reduce aggregate EMR adoption by between 20% and 30%. States that got rid of some of their regulations experienced a 21% gain in hospital EMR adoption rates around the years the laws changed compared with just an 11% gain in states that kept them intact, said the study.

This is really interesting, because I would have initially just called privacy laws an excuse. However, if this study holds true, then it’s more than just an excuse for why EMR adoption is low. Granted, it’s just one of many that people are using. I also think it’s worth noting that this is talking about EMR adoption in hospitals. I’m not sure most small doctors’ offices really pay enough attention to HIPAA and privacy rules for it to affect their adoption of EMR.