With more physicians reporting that electronic health records are more of a hindrance than a help, the American Medical Association is calling on vendors and federal health officials to make changes that will improve the usability of electronic systems.
The AMA released eight priorities for improving physician usability of EHRs. But Dr. Steven J. Stack, the AMA’s president-elect, said the most helpful first step would be for federal officials to add more flexibility to the so-called meaningful use program, which requires physicians to meet requirements for the clinical use of their EHRs, such as meeting benchmarks for electronic prescribing or communicating with patients via an online portal.
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The AMA has recommended eight priority changes to help make EHRs more efficient and useful to physicians.
The AMA is asking the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which oversees the meaningful use program, to lower the thresholds for earning incentives and penalties. Currently, physicians must meet 100% of the meaningful use standards to earn the bonus payment and avoid a penalty. The AMA wants physicians to be able to avoid penalties by meeting half of the requirements.
“In its ongoing evolution, the meaningful use program itself, and the certification process associated with it, have become overly prescriptive, rigid, unreasonable, and have themselves become a barrier to the necessary innovation to allow these tools to be effectively deployed to support physicians in their work on behalf of patients,” Dr. Stack said during a Sept. 16 news conference to announce the new AMA framework.
But vendors also have a role to play, according to the AMA. Dr. Stack said that most currently available systems aren’t customized with displays for individual specialties, ask for too much data entry from physicians, and require excessive scrolling and clicking.
The AMA has set eight priorities for improving EHR usability, developed by an advisory committee of physicians, experts, researchers, and health IT executives. The priorities include:
• Enhancing physicians’ ability to provide high -quality patient care.
• Supporting team-based care.
• Promoting care coordination.
• Offering product modularity and configuration.
• Reducing cognitive workload.
• Promoting data liquidity by allowing data to be shared between different settings.
• Facilitating digital and mobile engagement.
• Expediting user input into produce design and postimplementation feedback.
“Doctors find that these tools have great promise and potential. They’re just very much not where they need to be in terms of helping us instead of interfering with us,” said Dr. Stack, who is an emergency physician in Lexington, Ky.
The AMA’s call to action comes in the midst of National Health IT week, which features a week of events with IT vendors, federal officials, health care providers, and other groups focused on advancing health through the use of electronic systems.
mschneider@frontlinemedcom.com
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