Robert Kolodner, National Coordinator for Health IT, on Monday said that only 4% of physician practices with one or two providers have electronic health records, which he said is problematic because most patients seek care from these types of practices, Healthcare IT News reports.
"Approximately 68% of hospitals have some kind of automation, but only 11% have fully implemented EHRs," Kolodner said, adding, "And even worse, only a quarter of those fully implemented hospitals say that their doctors use their [EHRs]." Kolodner spoke at the 13th Annual Conference and Exhibition of the North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance.
He also said these statistics indicate that the U.S. is a long way from having health IT be the norm in health care facilities, although there is a "unique bipartisan opportunity" to move forward with health IT, if critical steps are taken.
Kolodner stressed the importance of state-level health IT initiatives and urged states to collaborate on issues such as physician licensure for interstate telehealth programs, Healthcare IT News reports.
Kolodner recommended that health care spending focus on preventive health measures. "IT is a necessary but not sufficient factor in improving health care quality. We're not going to do it in this country by pouring money in," he said, adding that the "savings are already there to be discovered within the system."
The future of health IT also includes telehealth, continuous home-based monitoring of patients and personalized care that links genetic data with EHRs, according to Kolodner (Pizzi, Healthcare IT News, 9/25).