ACP says Medicare should increase payments for physicians that use HIT to improve quality

Testimony to House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health cites benefits of health information technology

(Washington) – "The benefits of widespread adoption of interoperable Health Information Technology (HIT) will be significant, leading to a higher standard of quality in the U.S. healthcare system," Yul D. Ejnes, MD, FACP, told the House Ways and Means Committee subcommittee on Health today. "Unfortunately, without adequate financial incentives, small practices and their patients will be left behind the technological curve." Dr. Ejnes, a member of the Board of Regents of the American College of Physicians (ACP) and chairman of ACP's Medical Service Committee, testified at a subcommittee hearing, Promoting the Adoption and Use of Health Information Technology. "My 50-physician group practice has an electronic health record (EHR)," Dr. Ejnes, a general internist in private practice in Cranston, R.I., told the subcommittee as he cited personal experience. "Our practice leadership is tech-savvy, and we are fortunate to have received some support from a forward-looking private payer.

"With these favorable factors, you would think our decision to implement an EHR was simple. On the contrary, it took us 10 years. We have been using our EHR for two years now and have found that the challenges associated—especially the cost and impact on workflow and the lack of true interoperability—to be very substantial. Yet our challenges are not nearly as great as they are for physicians in smaller practices.

"Of the ACP members involved in direct patient care after training, approximately 20 percent are in solo practice and 50 percent are in practices of 5 or fewer physicians," Dr. Ejnes continued as he spoke from a more global perspective. "Three-fourths of all Medicare recipients receive their outpatient care from smaller physician practices. These are the physicians who already lag in HIT adoption and are least likely to have the necessary capital on-hand to invest in technology.