Research Finds Low Electronic Health Record Adoption Rates for Physician Groups

A comprehensive study by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) Center for Research and the University of Minnesota School of Public Health has captured the current state of adoption of electronic health records (EHR) by U.S. medical group practices. More than 3,300 medical group practices participated in the Assessing Adoption of Health Information Technology project, which was funded by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The study reports current rates of EHR adoption, which EHR features are more frequently used, barriers to adopting an EHR and how users rated the benefits of having adopted an EHR.

Smaller Practices Report Lower Adoption Rates

The research shows that just 14.1 percent of all medical group practices use an EHR, and just 11.5 percent indicated that an EHR was fully implemented for all physicians and at all practice locations. More significantly, the research shows that only 12.5 percent of medical group practices with five or fewer full-time-equivalent physicians (FTE) have adopted an EHR. The adoption rate increased with the size of practice; groups with six to 10 FTE physicians reported a 15.2 percent adoption rate, groups with 11-20 FTE physicians reported an 18.9 percent adoption rate, and groups of 20 or more FTE physicians had a 19.5 percent adoption rate.

Other data reveals that 12.7 percent of groups were in the process of implementing an EHR; 14.2 percent said implementation is planned in the next year; and 19.8 percent said implementation was planned in 13-24 months. The remaining 41.8 percent have no immediate plans for EHR adoption. Among those with no immediate plans for implementation, the difference between large and small groups is striking — 47.8 percent of practices with five or fewer FTE physicians compared with only 20.7 percent of practices with 21 or more physicians.

"Obviously, rates are low across the spectrum of all group sizes, but smaller groups face more challenges in adopting these technologies and progress more slowly than their larger counterparts," said Terry Hammons, MD, senior vice president, research and information, MGMA Center for Research, and co-author of the study. "For widespread adoption of EHRs to be successful, more work needs to be done, and small to medium size medical group practices will need more help than they are getting now." ...

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Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

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