Demand for Health Information Technology Sweeps Across All Kinds of Practices

Two hurricanes struck.  Then, a fire.  These natural disasters didn’t leave much intact on the Gulf Coast, including careful records of patients’ health histories.  For Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, M.D., the decision became clear: the switch to electronic health records from paper was worth the time it took.

Dr. Benjamin states, “My own personal experience in switching my practice from paper to EHRs showed that the change requires some initial effort; however, it did not interrupt work flow in the clinic. The results are better care for patients and new opportunities for the physician and staff to improve quality outcomes.”

This experience of the Surgeon General is reflected across the country, as more and more health care providers adopt Health Information Technology (ONC).  This transition is happening across all levels of the practices, from larger facilities to small practices.

This shift from paper documents to electronic ones is a lot of work, and recruiters in the field may wish to research where jobs might be created to help speed up this increase in health information technology across the country.

A study completed by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and published in the journal Health Affairs finds growing evidence of the benefits of health information technology (HIT). Using methods that were employed by two previous independent reviews, the new study finds that 92 percent of articles on HIT reached conclusions that showed overall positive effects of HIT on key aspects of care including quality and efficiency of health care.

In addition, the study finds increasing evidence of benefits for all health care providers, not just the larger health IT “leader” organizations (i.e., early adopters of HIT) that have provided much of the data regarding experience with HIT in the past.

“This article brings us much more up-to-date, both in our confidence regarding the overwhelming evidence of the benefits of adoption and use of HIT, and also in our understanding of problem areas that still need to be addressed, “ said David Blumenthal, M.D., the national coordinator for HIT and one of the authors of the review. “This review is important because it helps us correct for the lag in evidence that occurs naturally in the dynamic HIT field, where changes in technology and accelerating adoption cause the old literature to become quickly outdated.”