Implementation of the ambitious EHR incentive program and a general spike in health care IT spending has led to a surge in demand for EMR systems in the US. A report by global research and consulting firm, MarketsandMarkets, underscores this trend and predicts that the US EMR market will grow at an impressive CAGR of 18.1% during the forecast period 2010-2015.

According to the report - US Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Market, 2010-2015 (Market Share, Winning Strategies and Adoption Trends), the EMR market is estimated to grow from $2,177 million in 2009 to $6,054 million in 2015.

The market is booming as most health facilities in the US are moving towards adopting some form of Electronic Health Record system to rein in operational costs and improve practice efficiency. Adoption of a robust EMR system is also a core requirement under the EHR incentive program, which has also increased the demand for these systems.

EMR vendors are now seeking physician inputs to improve the usability of EMR systems even more and sustain the demand. Their focus is to ensure that EMR systems make patient information available in the format and manner desired by the providers.

Electronic Medical Records not only help practices store patient records electronically but are becoming an indispensable tool in delivering modern EHR and practice management solutions. This is why even the success of the EHR incentive program hinges on the effective implementation of EMR systems in hospitals and other care facilities.

Modern EMR systems convert patients’ paper records into electronic format, and make them accessible to providers anytime and anywhere, making the process of health care delivery faster, efficient and effective. Also, as EMRs capture detailed demographic and clinical patient data, they serve as an important information resource for researchers and government health agencies. This data can be used for studies conducted to understand which sections of the population are more vulnerable to certain diseases and devise disease prevention strategies.

CHICAGO – Recruiting thousands of patients to collect health data for genetic clues to disease is expensive and time consuming. But that arduous process of collecting data for genetic studies could be faster and cheaper by instead mining patient data that already exists in electronic medical records, according to new Northwestern Medicine research.

In the study, researchers were able to cull patient information in electronic medical records from routine doctors’ visits at five national sites that all used different brands of medical record software. The information allowed researchers to accurately identify patients with five kinds of diseases or health conditions – type 2 diabetes, dementia, peripheral arterial disease, cataracts and cardiac conduction.

“The hard part of doing genetic studies has been identifying enough people to get meaningful results,” said lead investigator Abel Kho, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “Now we’ve shown you can do it using data that’s already been collected in electronic medical records and can rapidly generate large groups of patients.”

The paper is published in Science Translational Medicine.

To identify the diseases, Kho and colleagues searched the records using a series of criteria such as medications, diagnoses and laboratory tests. They then tested their results against the gold standard – review by physicians. The physicians confirmed the results, Kho said. The electronic health records allowed researchers to identify patients’ diseases with 73 to 98 percent accuracy.

The researchers also were able to reproduce previous genetic findings from prospective studies using the electronic medical records. The five institutions that participated in the study collected genetic samples for research. Patients agreed to the use of their records for studies.

Sequencing individuals’ genomes is becoming faster and cheaper. It soon may be possible to include patients’ genomes in their medical records, Kho noted. This would create a bountiful resource for genetic research.

“With permission from patients, you could search electronic health records at not just five sites but 25 or 100 different sites and identify 10,000 or 100,000 patients with diabetes, for example,” Kho said.

The larger the group of patients for genetic studies, the better the ability to detect rarer affects of the genes and the more detailed genetic sequences that cause a person to develop a disease.

The study also showed across-the-board weaknesses in institutions’ electronic medical records. The institutions didn’t do a good job of capturing race and ethnicity, smoking status and family history, all which are important areas of study, Kho said. “It shows we need to focus our efforts to use electronic medical records more meaningfully,” he added.

Source   :   http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/study-emrs-speed-genetic-health-studies

Now a days with huge scientific and technical development, world has become a busy place. Due to increased competency, work load in every sector has increased many folds. This increase in the workload has led to increase in the stress in the healthcare sector as well. Taking care of medical records of huge number of patients is one of the most tedious tasks for healthcare professionals. Medical record keeping is a multi-faceted procedure that includes patient registration, recording of medical history, organized documentation of diagnostic studies to enable judicious accessibility of all the patient data for the healthcare purposes. The process consumes a lot of time and effort. But with the introduction of electronic medical records, popularly known as EMR, all the problems pertaining to patient records have been eased off.

EMR is the computerized form of medical records. It is a unique way in which all the patient data can be stored, read, studied, and manipulated at the ease of physician. Due to its following advantages, it has become very popular :

• EMR enables the easy mobility of medical records. By EMR, medical records can be accessed by the authorized person from almost anywhere.
• EMR is the best way to cut on the costs incurred on transportation and postage of data, salaries of healthcare professionals, stationery charges, and technological costs. By inculcating EMR in your system, you save the money and time spent on creation, gathering, and management of medical records. In order to avail a errorless and secure product, you have to pay a very reasonable fee.
• EMR assures you of a better quality product with huge reduction in the chances of making errors. It is handled by professionals who are proficient and adequately trained for the job.

Healthcare professionals can hugely benefit from outsourcing EMR services. Besides being a quicker and cost-effective procedure, it is a sure shot solution to all the worries related to electronic medical records.

Source    :     http://www.lonad.com/2011/04/01/electronic-medical-records-%E2%80%93-freedom-from-record-keeping-hassles/

In today’s Internet era, the way we view, edit, and exchange documents has changed to a new advanced level. This has also led to emergence of electronic Medical Records (EMR) in the field of healthcare. Earlier, there was no other option for healthcare professionals than to maintain paper based records. These required a lot of time, effort, and space. But now computer based EMR are increasingly replacing the paper based medical records as they are come with many advantages. The basic benefit provided by EMR is helping the providers with instant availability of data round the clock. They are vastly helpful in reducing the huge costs incurred on data maintenance, storage, and staff.

In order to draw maximum benefits from the EMR, it is important to choose the provider based on the following criteria:

• While choosing an EMR provider, you should take into account the experience of the provider in the healthcare industry. You should stick to the experienced providers.

• You should be knowledgeable as to how much support a provider offers. Assessing their range of support options ensures you get the needful help for seamless operations. Take your time to select the one that offers the best support and product.

• You should make sure that your provider facilitates easy and quick access to all the patients’ information to you.

• To ensure privacy of your database, adhering to the one with HIPPA compliance is a must.

• It is advisable to visit and explore options of various EMR vendors. You can run an online search, visit the websites, and even take advice from EMR consulting service to support your decision.

Transitioning to a new technology system can be difficult but by selecting the right electronic medical records provider and wise planning, you will be able to increase the efficiency and speed at the office and that too at a very affordable price.

Source    :     http://www.lonad.com/2011/03/22/electronic-medical-records-%E2%80%93-keeping-pace-with-new-age-healthcare/

A new comparative study in Sub‑Saharan Africa using computer‑generated clinical reminders–within electronic medical records (EMRs)–found significantly improved clinician adherence to blood testing guidelines used for monitoring patients with HIV.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Regenstrief Institute and the schools of medicine at Indiana University and Moi University in Kenya, is one of the first ever to examine and demonstrate the impact of EMRs on quality of medical care in a developing country. The comparative study used clinical summaries with computer‑generated reminders.

In the study appearing in the March Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Martin Chieng Were, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine and a Regenstrief Institute investigator, and colleagues found that computer-generated reminders used in clinics in Eldoret, Kenya yielded nearly a 50 percent increase in the appropriate ordering of the CD4 blood tests.

“We need to improve quality of care in the developing world at a time when funding for HIV and other diseases is stagnating or decreasing–which means we will have to do it with fewer personnel as the number of patients increases,” Were said.

Also, this work is particularly significant, the researchers said, because many medical errors occur in settings where too few skilled health‑care providers deal with a large patient population with critical illnesses.

Source   :    http://www.fierceemr.com/story/emrs-found-improve-care-quality-countries-limited-resources/2011-03-22

In its annual National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be sending nearly 5,500 physicians a supplemental survey to measure the adoption and impact of electronic medical records (EMRs) in their practices.

The survey reviews office visits made by ambulatory patients to non-Federal office-based physicians (excluding those in the specialties of anesthesiology, radiology, and pathology) who are engaged in direct patient care.

This survey size could expand by another 1,000 physicians–and 30,000 visit records–if Congress approves a fiscal 2011 budget increases for the survey requested by President Obama. NCHS also could increase the sample by another 500 physicians funded through the Affordable Care Act.

“These increases will greatly improve the ability to track providers’ practice patterns, including their adoption and meaningful use of health information technology,” a CDC notice published Feb. 11 in the Federal Register says.

A supplemental mail survey on the adoption and use of EMRs in physician offices was added to the CDC survey in 2008, and it will continue, according to Health Data Management. However, the scope of the survey is expanding in 2011: It will collect information and characteristics of physician practices and how  EMRs are used in those practices, the notice says.

In addition, the mail survey will ask about physician workflow before and after EMR implementation. The EMR workflow mail survey, sponsored by Office of the National Coordinator, will evaluate the progress of “meeting the President’s goal for most Americans to have access to an interoperable electronic health record by 2014,” according to the notice.

Source    :    http://www.fierceemr.com/story/cdc-survey-will-review-physician-adoption-emrs/2011-02-17

While the sales growth in electronic medical record (EMR) systems has been slower than anticipated due to confusion over vendor qualifications and federal guidelines, the EMR market did grow in 2010 and it should see much better years ahead, according to a report from Kalorama Information.

The value of the market for EMRs was about $15.7 billion in 2010, according to the New York-based healthcare market research company in its latest report, “EMR 2011: The Market for Electronic Medical Record Systems.”

The EMR growth rate in 2010 was 13.6 percent–just above the rate in 2009 (10 percent). These rates were less, though, than predicted by Kalorama researchers (it had predicted about a 15 percent growth for both years). However, the rates may be improving as physician adoption improves and more incentive checks for EMR adoption under meaningful use guidelines are sent out.

Kalorama is predicting that adoption and upgrading activities will be “brisk” in coming years. As new systems are sold, companies will earn revenues from existing clients in servicing and consulting–resulting in a market growth rate of 18 to 20 percent for the next two years.

“We think that while progress was made in physician adoption and in vendor sales, there is still a lot more potential,” said Bruce Carlson, publisher of Kalorama Information, in a statement. “There are still a considerable number of physicians who need to be fully functional and hospitals that have to improve their stage ranking.”

Source     :      http://www.fierceemr.com/story/emr-market-expected-increase-growth/2011-03-03

CHICAGO – Seventy-eight percent of Americans favor the use of electronic medical records, according to a recent study by NORC at the University of Chicago, an independent research organization.

The study was published in the February edition of the journal HSR: Health Services Research.

Researchers say this report is different because most previous studies of EMRs have focused on the attitudes of clinicians or health organizations. Surprisingly few have focused on the attitudes of consumers toward health IT and, of those, none were based on a sample that fully represents the American people.

Key findings of the study are:

• Fifty-nine percent believe EMRs could reduce health costs
• Seventy-two percent support sharing of health care information among providers
• Eighty percent favored use of e-prescribing
• Seventy-nine percent thought that personal health records would help patients to be better informed about their health.
• Despite the fact that 48 percent of Americans are concerned about the privacy of medical records, fully 64 percent said that the benefits of EMRs outweigh privacy concerns
• The study also found that Americans aren’t without their reservations. Forty-four percent said they are not willing to pay to increase the use of health IT, and 57 percent said that use of health IT would make no difference in their choice of a physician.

Individuals with lower income and those who have less familiarity with electronic technology have less favorable attitudes towards health IT, the study found. Researchers say this implies that some of the populations that are most likely to benefit from health IT may be least open-minded about it.

“Our core finding is that a large majority of Americans support use of health IT to improve healthcare and safety, and reduce costs, which suggests that government and industry efforts to increase the effectiveness and use of health IT are generally consistent with the public’s wishes,” said Dan Gaylin, NORC’s executive vice president for Research, and the lead author of the study. “But there is still room for efforts to demonstrate the advantages of health IT among some important demographic groups.”

Source   :    http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/study-most-americans-support-emrs

Patient-centered medical homes have become all the rage in the healthcare industry these days. The big push is coming from payers who want to cut costs and provider organizations who want primary care physicians to have a bigger say in the care of their patients. No matter who is driving the financial and clinical model, the train isn’t leaving the station, so to speak, without health IT to power it.

At a primary-care practice in St. Louis, Mo., both patients and their families are seeing firsthand how an electronic medical record system documents patient treatment and applies clinical decision support and analytics to tailor a patient’s treatment plan.

PCMHs are not all the same, and the Des Peres Internal Medicine office further personalizes treatment by having a nurse practitioner and social worker as part of the PCMH team. One of the Des Peres Internal Medicine physicians said that one of the goals of the PCMH is to increase patient access to care. That could mean access to the social worker via telephone. It also gives patients the extra channel of communicating or completing tasks such as making an appointment, filling a prescription or entering patient vitals via a patient portal.

One of the best benefits of an EMR in a PCMH is the streamlining of care delivery, which includes the elimination of duplicative tests. Most patients in a PCMH likely have multiple chronic conditions that a care team must manage. If patients see multiple specialists on their own, who is coordinating the care? Even if the coordination is done through a primary-care physician, without an EMR to aggregate data and document what happens in every specialist office, the amount of administrative and clinical paperwork would be overwhelming.

Another benefit is empowering patients, which can often translate into taking better care of themselves, especially when they have their up-to-date patient information available to them via the patient portal and clinical decision support and analytics to support their entire care team.

Source     :     http://www.healthcareitnews.com/blog/patient-centered-medical-home-requires-emr-system

Government incentives for using electronic medical records will result in spending on systems doubling by 2015, according to a report by IDC Health Insights. However, the study notes that much of that growth will come closer to end of that projected period, because vendors are having trouble keeping up with the orders.

Total EMR spending, which is expected to grow from $1.9 billion in 2009 to $3.8 billion by 2015, is about twice the growth rate analysts are seeing over the health information technology market and the general IT market, said Judy Hanover, research director of provider IT strategies for the Framingham, Mass.-based market research company and co-author of the report.

The report notes that a separate IDC survey in August 2010 found that 44% of health care organizations plan to accelerate or aggressively accelerate their plans to deploy EMRs because of financial incentives in the 2009 economic stimulus package. The stimulus provided incentives of up to $44,000 under Medicare and nearly $64,000 under Medicaid for meaningful use of an EMR.

But this rapid deployment is causing a vendor backlog that has resulted in unanticipated delays of up to six months for some practices and hospitals. Hanover said this has been a bigger issue for inpatient system deployments, but analysts are starting to see it on the ambulatory side as well.

The authors of the report predicted that the largest chunk of EMR investments will come in 2015. Not only is the backlog expected to cause delays, but some physicians will put off purchasing until it gets closer to 2015, when incentives turn to penalties.

The forecast shows clinics and physician practices will spend $335 million on EMRs in 2011 and $490 million in 2015. Ambulatory EMR spending overall was $633 million in 2009 and is expected to reach $1.4 billion in 2015.

Making an early decision on an EMR will help ensure that staff members are available for its installation, Hanover said. Practices might want to consider looking at third-party vendors if their primary vendors are experiencing a backlog, she said. Many third parties can provide installation and training services with the help of the vendor, she said.

After 2015, vendors are expected to enter a “maintenance cycle” in which revenue will come mostly from replacement systems or upgrades. Not only could the government require EMRs to perform more functions than they do today to qualify for incentives, health system reform may have an impact.

“We do expect to see, as health care reform goes into effect, a massive consolidation in the provider community in terms of acquisitions and reductions in the total number of providers,” Hanover said. “And that will drive some replacements and upgrading and reinvestment in EMRs.”

Source    :    http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/01/31/bisd0201.htm