For years, many physicians have complained about the onerous nature of government-certified electronic medical records. However, thanks to the HITECH Act, the rush to digitize medical records has continued. Due to the impetus provided by the ACA and subsequently by MACRA, the mad rush has progressed into a frenzy of data-collecting and reporting activity, all in the name of value over volume.
Recently, two objective reports have surfaced demonstrating the futility of all these untested efforts. The first report in Health Affairs, “U.S. Physician Practices Spend More Than $15.4 Billion Annually To Report Quality Measures,” finds an average physician practice spends more than $40,000 per year just reporting quality measures. Digging deeper into the report shows that among five components of the reporting process, data entry was reported as the most time-consuming. Only 27 percent of respondents said that current measures are “moderately or very representative” of the quality of care patients receive. The survey’s main author, Lawrence Casalino commented, “It wouldn’t be too strong to say we’re sacrificing a generation of physicians and staff to the problems with EHRs.”
A second report demonstrates the burden of inbox notifications in commercial EMRs and how it affects physicians. Such notifications exceed 100 per day for some primary care physicians (PCPs) during the first half of 2015. The authors note, “extrapolating this finding to commercial EHRs suggests that physicians spend an estimated 66.8 minutes per day processing notifications, which likely adds a substantial burden to their workday.”
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