Why are doctors so upset? Are the EMR vendors just saying whatever they need to say?

Another Study Highlights Physician EMR Unhappiness

2013-03-15 17:28:54

The evidence keeps coming in, over and over, like waves pounding on a beach. Many physicians aren’t happy with their EMRs, and the number of discontented doctors seems to be growing — with an undetermined but sizable number seeming likely to switch this year.

This time the evidence comes courtesy of the American College of Physicians and EMR selection site AmericanEHR Partners. A new study by the pair reports that physician satisfaction with EMRs dropped 12 percentage points between 2010 and 2012, and that the number who are “very dissatisfied” grew by 10 percentage points, FierceEMR reports.

These numbers, which were drawn from 4,279 responses to multiple surveys between March 2010 and December 2012, are a particularly strong reflection of the mood among smaller practices. Seventy-one percent of doctors/practices responding to the survey were in practices with 10 physicians or fewer, the ACP said.

These physicians seem downright upset with their current vendors. In fact, 39 percent of clinicians said they wouldn’t recommend their current EMR to a colleague, up sharply from the 24 percent who said the same in 2010.

According to the ACP, physicians feel their EMR is failing them in several key areas:

* Improving care: Doctors who were “very satisfied” with their EMR’s ability to improve care fell by 6 percent from 2010, while the “very dissatisfied” climbed 10 percent, with surgical specialists the least satisfied specialty.

* Decreasing workload: ACP found that 34 percent of users were “very dissatisfied” with their ability to decrease workload, up from just 19 percent in 2010.

* Return to pre-EMR productivity: The number of respondents who had not returned normal productivity after their EMR install was 32 percent in 2012, up from 20 percent in 2010.

* Ease of use: Dissatisfaction with EMR ease of use climbed to 37 percent in 2012, up from 23 percent in 2012, while satisfaction dropped from 61 to 48 percent.

That we’re seeing something of an EMR backlash seems obvious here. The question is, will unhappy physicians switch futilely and end up just as unhappy, or are they going to actually improve their experience?

“Mobile is changing everything”

DoctorBase Passes 3 Million Patients On Its Mobile Messaging Platform

March 25, 2013 By Steve Campbell 0 Comments and 6 Reactions

DoctorBase.com, a service allowing physicians to offer their patients secure, medically oriented smartphone access, has announced that they have surpassed three million patients and more than 9,000 healthcare providers on its platform. They also announced a free version of their product will be available to licensed providers in the U.S. starting today.

Created by former developers from Five9 and LiveJournal, working with a team of primary care doctors and specialists ranging from OB/GYN to Oncology, San Francisco-based DoctorBase believes that mHealth-as-a-Service is the solution to expensive, cumbersome patient portals that have failed to gain traction with either providers or patients.

“Mobile is changing everything,” said John Sung Kim, CEO of DoctorBase.com. “Now that health systems are starting to wake up to the benefits of cloud computing and the Internet, they’re so late to the party that it’s no longer about that paradigm – patients across all demographics now use smartphones as their primary connectivity device. That’s leaving both doctors and patients communicating with each other in non-HIPAA compliant, unsecured ways such as email and text for the simple sake of convenience.”

“Transcription versus EMR/EHR” – The Perfect Solution

By Andy Braverman, President of Apptec Corporation… a developer of next generation speech processing products.

“The way to do it right, is for the doctor to dictate just as they have for decades.
Dictation is the most efficient use of the doctor’s time. The EMR/EHR should only be in front of the
doctor to review a patient’s records… not to input data into it. For data input into the EMR/EHR, that
should be a “back office” task performed by the transcriptionist.” READ MORE

MDS’ Wichita State University Coop Student … Sydney Blanton!

Entrepreneurship and Management Experience Combined

Sydney Blanton’s experience atMDS of Kansas, a 22-year-old Kansas grown, document service business specializing in healthcare documentation, has been beneficial since the beginning. “Since day one, I have been helping with the marketing and growth of the business through forming and organizing potential client lists, brainstorming and working with direct mailers and newsletters, making cold calls, and working on the business Facebook and Twitter page,” said Sydney, a senior at WSU majoring in entrepreneurship and management.

This experience has giving her the opportunity see both the management and entrepreneurship side of starting and running a successful business. “I see that running your own business requires a strong, motivated, unique person with the drive and energy to see it grow. You need a strong talented team with their own unique experiences and talents to bring to the table. I have learned a lot about what kind of work environment I would like to be a part of,” said Sydney.

This co-op experience has solidified Sydney’s choice of study while at WSU, and she has her eyes set for the future. “Majoring in entrepreneurship and management was the best choice for me. I have had the opportunity to gain experience that will help me transition from college into a career that love,” said Sydney.

CMT & RMT Practice Exams

In the News: Credentialing Practice Exams Coming Soon

AHDI will soon be releasing Credentialing Practice Exams for both the RMT and CMT. These exams, developed by the same group of professionals who developed the exams, will simulate a real test environment, complete with the hands-on experience of the Kryterion testing platform. After taking a practice exam, you will be provided feedback on objectives from questions answered incorrectly so that you have a guide on which skills you need to brush up on before taking the real exam.

Look for the RMT Practice Exam to be available in March, and the CMT Practice Exam to follow in April. Check www.ahdionline.org frequently for our most recent updates.