News Feature | November 25, 2014

Patient Volume Decreases 14% With Each HIT System Implemented

Katie Wike

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Patient Monitoring System

A recent survey shows doctors feel that healthcare technology is impeding their ability to see more patients.

According to a survey published in the American Journal of Managed Care, Michigan primary care physicians report health IT may be limiting the number of patients a provider is able to see.

Fierce Health IT reports the technologies most associated with lower patient capacity were EHRs and electronic access to admitting records. Other technologies were not perceived as significantly affecting capacity, such as electronic prescribing, state immunization registry, reminder systems, and Web portals to either request refills or schedule appointments.

“Our findings have a few possible interpretations. First, it is plausible that use of technologies may lead to decreased physician efficiency, and that decreased efficiency leads to decreased capacity to see additional patients. Several prior studies have found either increased time per patient encounter or decreased physician or practice productivity associated with HIT use,” write the study’s authors.

“However, other studies, including one review of the literature, have instead found improved physician productivity with HIT use. In one study of 42 primary care practices across the United States between 2006 and 2009, while there was improved physician productivity associated with EHR use in large practices, there was decreased productivity in small practices, suggesting this association may depend on practice size or other characteristics.”

This isn’t the first time EHRs have received criticism for their ability to waste providers’ time. Research from the American Journal of Emergency Medicine showed emergency department (ED) physicians spent 44 percent of their time on EHR work and only 28 percent of their day seeing patients.

Conversely, Health IT Outcomes reported on another study which found EHRs are in fact not causing lost time with patients. This study found physicians spend 2.1 more minutes on every patient visit and total physician visits have increased 39 percent since 1993.