California MDs lead in EMR adoption

On the one hand, California physicians are clearly on the cutting edge when it comes to EMR adoption. On the other, if this is leadership, we've still got a long way to go. According to a new report by the California HealthCare Foundation, about 37 percent of California doctors use EMRs, compared with 28 percent in the rest of the U.S. On the other hand, medium-sized and solo practices are still lagging, with 25 percent using EMRs (compared with 13 percent elsewhere in the country).

More importantly, California physicians don't seem to be doing much more than their peers to exploit advanced EMR capabilities. For example, only 12 percent are using alerts to warn them about possible adverse drug reactions, follow-up care reminders or alerts on abnormal lab results.

As elsewhere in the country, cost seems to be the major barrier to adoption, with 59 percent citing it as an issue. Also mentioned were difficulty and cost of implementing EMRs (42 percent), questions about selecting the right vendor (31 percent) and concerns over changing practice styles (30 percent).

To get more data from the study:
- read this Modern Healthcare piece (reg. req.)

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