Although practice setting and size are the strongest predictors of physicians’ access to clinical IT in their practices, significant variation in IT adoption exists across specialties, according to a national study released Sept. 20 by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). Based on HSC’s nationally representative 2004-05 Community Tracking Study Physician Survey, the study’s findings are detailed in a new HSC data bulletin, Clinical Information Technology Adoption Varies Across Physician Specialties.
The study examined whether physicians had access to IT in their practices for five clinical activities: obtaining information about treatment alternatives or recommended guidelines; accessing patient notes; writing prescriptions; exchanging clinical data and images with other physicians; and exchanging clinical data and images with hospitals.
Across primary care and medical and surgical specialties, significant variation in access to IT exists. For example, surgeons lagged medical specialists in access to IT for four of the five clinical activities, and were less likely to have all five clinical activities associated with an EMR. Differences in IT access among subspecialties were even greater. For example, psychiatrists were substantially less likely than the comparison group of other medical subspecialists to access IT for all activities, except writing prescriptions. In contrast, oncologists were much more likely than the comparison group to have access to IT for guidelines and exchanging data with hospitals and physicians.
