Study finds health IT adoption growing

A new study released Thursday found that up to 50 percent of healthcare providers have either adopted electronic health records or are partially using them.

The study released by CompTIA found that 34 percent of healthcare providers now use a "comprehensive" electronic health records system and 16 percent said they are using a partial system. About 29 percent said they are evaluating their options while 20 percent have not looked at the issue. The study, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points, was conducted in two parts and surveyed 370 U.S. information technology firms, about 40 percent of which do business in the healthcare sector, and 300 U.S. healthcare providers.

Of those who have adopted electronic health records, 59 percent said they were "completely" or "mostly satisfied," and 36 percent said they were partly satisfied and partly dissatisfied, with dentists reporting higher rates of satisfaction, 70 percent compared with 57 percent for medical doctors. Reliability was cited as the biggest complaint by providers.

"Healthcare providers have clear objectives for their IT investments - reducing costs, saving time, improving productivity and most importantly, improving patient care," CompTIA Vice President of Research Tim Herbert said in a statement. "Anything that may disrupt patient care is a serious issue, so product reliability is especially critical."

In an interview, Alice Borrelli, Intel's director of global health and workforce policy, credited the billions included in last year's economic stimulus package for health information technology with helping to drive up electronic health record adoption rates.

"I don't think it would have happened" without the stimulus funding, she said, noting that in 2006, only 11 percent of healthcare providers had adopted electronic health records. "This is a program critical to really making a difference in health care. It saves lives," she added.

The stimulus included funding to help healthcare providers adopt health IT, providing $44,000 for each doctor to help defray the costs of switching to electronic health records.

While Borrelli gave high marks to the Obama administration's health IT efforts, she said she would like to see funding extended to so-called "hand-off" providers, such as physical therapists and others who step in to care for patients after they leave the hospital or a doctor's office. She said Congress would have to change the eligibility requirements and allocate additional funding for such providers.