Cloud-based EHRs gaining ground

Almost 70 percent of small and solo physician practices are on board with web-based EHRs, according to a four-month user poll of 5,700 small and solo physician practices across all medical and surgical specialties recently published by Black Book Market Research.

According to 83 percent of the respondents, the single biggest trend in physician technology is cloud-based EHRs.

Improvements in Web-based EHRs--including implementations, updates, usability and customization--have reversed overall EHR satisfaction in small practices from barely 13 percent in 2012 to 83 percent overall, small practice EHR users said in the second quarter of 2015.

The adoption rate of cloud-based EHRs in small practices in urban settings also has increased from 60 percent in 2013 to 82 percent in 2015 but adoption by rural practices remains the same as in 2013 at 20 percent. Of the solo-practice rural physicians, 91 percent said fear of internet outages has prevented them from changing to a cloud-based EHR.

"The focus of healthcare technology vendors needs to be on mobile, cloud and data integration to successfully meet the future demands of the changing healthcare landscape," Doug Brown, managing partner of Black Book, said in a release.

Other findings of the report include the following:

• 79 percent of small practices cited pricing as the main factor in purchasing a cloud EHR. Of small practices that switched EHRs between June 2014 and May 2015, 48 percent reported the financial burden of changing EHRs has put the practice in an unstable financial position.
• 38 percent of solo and small practice physicians have moderate to serious concerns about the security and privacy of cloud-based EHR systems, despite 90 percent recognizing that the cloud EHR models have matured in this area.
• 81 percent of physicians employing server-based EHR software say they are concerned about breaches, while 92 percent of small-practice EHR users that switched to a cloud-based EHR from a server in the last six months feel their chances of a major patient record data breach are lowered.
• 69 percent of respondents said first-generation EHRs have not lived up to expectations, and are particularly dissatisfied with cost add-ons, affected workflows and lost time with patients.

"An increasing number (79 percent in 2015, up from 64 percent in 2014) of new conversions are using software-as-a-service type implementations, driving the growing number of physician practices to cloud-based products," Brown said.

The lack of interoperability was cited by 91 percent of respondents as the biggest challenge to improving clinical and financial performance, while concerns about implementation and deployment has fallen to 20 percent from 82 percent in 2013.