June 2006

Access to clinical IT grows

Physician access to practice-based clinical information technology (IT) grew significantly between 2000-01 and 2004-05, according to a national study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC).

The study examined whether physician practices used IT for the following five clinical activities: obtaining information about treatment alternatives or recommended guidelines; exchanging clinical data and images with other physicians; accessing patient notes, medication lists, or problem lists; generating preventive treatment reminders for the physician’s use; and writing prescriptions.

Between 2000-01 and 2004-05, the proportion of physicians reporting access to IT for each of the five clinical activities grew by at least 5 percentage points. Changes in the proportion of physicians with access to IT for each of the clinical activities between 2000-01 and 2004-05 are as follows:

The study also found that physicians were more likely to be in practices that used IT for multiple clinical activities in 2004-05 than four years earlier. The proportion of physicians reporting their practice has IT access for four or all five of the clinical activities nearly doubled over the period, growing from 11.1 percent to 20.9 percent. And significantly fewer physicians reported being in practices with limited clinical IT, with the percentage of physicians in practices with IT for no more than one clinical activity dropping from 50.6 percent to 37 percent.

The study cautioned that the findings be considered an upper bound on the proportion of physicians regularly using clinical IT in their practices because physicians were asked about IT availability in their practice, but not whether they actually use the technology or the frequency or intensity of use.

Source: Center for Studying Health System Change, www.hschange.org