Physicians in smaller practices continue to lag well behind physicians in larger practices in having clinical IT in their offices, according to a national study by the Center for Studying Health System Change.
The proportion of physicians reporting access to IT for each of five clinical activities increased across all practice settings between 2000-01 and 2004-05. But adoption gaps between small and large practices persisted for two of the clinical activities (obtaining treatment guidelines and exchanging clinical data with other physicians) and widened for the other three (accessing patient notes, generating preventive care reminders, and writing prescriptions).
In the case of access to IT to write prescriptions, the adoption gap between small (1-9 physicians) and large (51-plus physicians) group practices tripled between 2000-01 and 2004-05, the study found. In 2000-01, 8% of physicians in small group practices reported access to IT to write prescriptions, with the proportion growing to 13% in 2004-05. In contrast, 19% of physicians in large group practices reported access to IT to write prescriptions in 2000-01, but the proportion grew to 47% by 2004-05.
The study also found physicians in practices treating more underserved and vulnerable patients--low-income, minority, or rural patients and those with chronic conditions--generally were no less likely to report access to IT in their practices than other physicians. The study cautioned that the findings should be considered an upper bound on the proportion of physicians regularly using clinical IT in their practices. Read the report.
