Most Wired

Connecting All Your Docs

By Alden Solovy

Hospitals subsidize physicians—employed and independent—to make electronic medical records more dynamic

The nation's top tech hospitals lead the way in the use of IT to share key clinical information with physicians, an indication that hospital investments in physician office electronic medical records may be paying off.

That investment—in the form of subsidies—appears nearly ubiquitous among the 2009 Most Wired hospitals and health systems, with 93 percent of those organizations providing some degree of support to either employed physician practices or independent physician practices.

"Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has invested $8 million to build an EMR hosting center for our affiliated community physicians," says Chief Information Officer John Halamka. The medical center appears on the Most Wired list for the third time in 2009 and also appears on this year's Most Wireless list.

The majority of the Most Wired do not distinguish between employed and independent physicians in their integration efforts, with 57 percent subsidizing both types of physician practices.

"We continue to follow an aggressive schedule to complete rollout of our integrated EMR to every hospital and physician practice in our system," says Daniel Barchi, senior vice president and CIO of Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, Va. The organization is working aggressively on completing the implementation of the longitudinal EMR at all 117 Carilion Clinic locations. In 2009, Carilion makes it seventh appearance on the 100 Most Wired list.

Less than half of the least wired subsidize physician office EMRs, with the primary focus being employed physicians.

The difference in the results is obvious from the data. Nearly 70 percent of the Most Wired can accept continuity of care records prepared from a physician office EMR regardless of whether the record is coming from employed or independent physician practices. That's more than double the rate for the typical survey respondent and more than 11 times greater than the least wired.

"We are working closely with our physicians and local RHIO [regional health information organization] to ensure that, as we implement the applications that will complete our EMR, we will be positioned to expand our exchange of patient data with physicians," says John Schrenker, CIO of Lakeside Health System in Brockport, N.Y., which appears on the 2009 Most Improved list.

Results viewing and clinical documentation are the EMR functionalities that are implemented most often, followed by order entry and decision support.

Lake Hospital System is implementing an EMR for both acute care services and system-owned physician office practices. "We're also working with private physician practices with privileges at our facilities to implement EMRs in their offices through a joint-hosting initiative," says Jerry Peters, vice president of information technologies and CIO at Lake Hospital System in Painesville, Ohio.

"We've also applied for several grants to obtain funds to assist area physicians in covering costs associated with the EMR start-up," he says. The system appears on the 2009 Most Improved list.

The use of physician portals to connect the medical community is virtually complete among the Most Wired, with 100 percent providing this vehicle for information exchange.

Even among the least wired, physician portals are prevalent, with 64 percent providing this technology, but the breadth of services is more limited.

This article 1st appeared in the September 2009 issue of HHN Magazine.

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