Report: EHR use prevalent, but few Calif. docs have optimized

While a large number of California physicians have an EHR system, results from a survey prepared for the California Healthcare Foundation (CHCF) found that of the 71 percent of physicians surveyed that have an EHR, only 30 percent have them configured to meet all 12 of the meaningful use objectives measured in the study.

The report, released this month, was prepared for the CHCF by the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). In 2011, faculty at UCSF developed and conducted a survey to help the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) estimate the extent to which California physicians currently use EHRs.

The researchers found the EHR systems used by physicians vary in their availability of functions meeting the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) meaningful use objectives. “At the low end, only 40 percent of responding physicians have an EHR with the capacity to provide patients with access to their own electronic records; at the high end, 61 percent of all physicians have an EHR with the ability to take clinical notes,” the report stated. “Physicians are more likely to use EHR functions that give them information they can use during patient encounters than functions associated with assessing quality of care or exchanging information electronically with patients or other providers.”

The report found that 35 percent of physicians with EHRs are very satisfied with them, 38 percent are somewhat unsatisfied, 13 percent are somewhat dissatisfied and 14 percent are very dissatisfied.

Additionally, the report noted that practice is the strongest predictor of EHR availability. “Physicians who practice in large organizations are much more likely to have an EHR at their main practice location than physicians in solo practice, small partnerships or community/public clinics.” Hospital-based physicians are more likely to have EHRs than office-based physicians and urban physicians are more likely to have EHRs than rural physicians, the report added.

An estimated 21,598 physicians will be eligible for the Medi-Cal EHR incentive payment program based on their payor mix, practice setting and practice type. According to the survey, 37 percent of physicians plan to apply for either Medi-Cal or Medicare incentive payments for meaningful use of EHRs.

“The survey’s findings suggest that EHRs are widely available in California physicians’ practice, but that many of these EHRs are not currently configured to meet CMS objectives for meaningful use,” the report concluded.