September 2005

EHR adoption rates low for physician groups

A comprehensive study by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) Center for Research and the University of Minnesota School of Public Health shows that just 14.1 percent of all medical group practices use HER (electronic recordkeeping system) and only 12.5 percent of medical group practices with five or fewer full-time-equivalent physicians (FTE) have adopted an EHR.

More than 3,300 medical group practices participated in the Assessing Adoption of Health Information Technology project, which was funded by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The study reports current rates of EHR adoption, which EHR features are more frequently used, barriers to adopting an EHR and how users rated the benefits of having adopted an EHR.

The research Among those with no immediate plans for implementation (41.8 percent), the difference between large and small groups is striking — 47.8 percent of practices with five or fewer FTE physicians compared with only 20.7 percent of practices with 21 or more physicians.

With funding from AHRQ, MGMA Practice Management Resources Director David N. Gans, FACMPE, Kralewski, Hammons, and Dowd surveyed a nationally representative sample of medical group practices to assess their current use of information technology. They conducted the survey in January and February 2005. MGMA members made up 25 percent of the sample.

Despite state and federal efforts to encourage adoption of these technologies, group practices cited “lack of capital resources to invest in EHR” as the top barrier to adoption. Also, University of Minnesota researchers noted, an important barrier to adoption is that practices are not convinced EHRs will improve their performance.

The average purchase and implementation cost of an EHR was $32,606 per FTE (full-time employed) physician. Maintenance costs were an additional $1,500 per physician per month. Not surprising was the finding that smaller practices had the highest per-physician implementation cost at $37,204. The study also found that the average cost for EHR implementation was about 25 percent more than initial vendor estimates.

Findings of the research are also highlighted in the September/October edition of Health Affairs in “Medical Groups’ Adoption of Electronic Health Records and Information Systems” written by Gans, Kralewski, Hammons and Dowd.

Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, www.ahrq.gov/news

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