In a survey of 3,700 doctors in eight countries, most physicians were in agreement that health IT can reduce medical errors, synchronize care across different healthcare providers and enhance clinical research, but opinions began to diverge when other possible benefits were discussed.
An Accenture survey of doctors in the United States, England, Singapore, Canada, France, Australia, Spain and Germany found that American physicians were less likely – by a 45 percent to 59 percent margin – to believe that health IT systems, such as electronic medical records software, medical scheduling software and e-prescribing software, improved the health of patients.
Furthermore, while 61 percent of all doctors surveyed claimed health IT had enhanced the quality of their treatment decisions, only 47 percent of American physicians said they had witnessed that outcome firsthand.
One significant takeaway from the survey was that doctors who used e-prescribing platforms and other related health IT tools were more likely to believe significant benefits could be derived from these systems.
"The survey of doctors shows that more needs to be done to bridge the disconnect in perception and impact of health IT benefits," Accenture's North American representative Kaveh Safavi told InformationWeek Healthcare. "Despite the high-level skepticism of technology, U.S. physicians have made progress in implementing healthcare IT for practices relating to disease management."
The protracted process of widespread health IT integration – spurred by financial penalties for noncompliance that do not begin until 2014 – has led many healthcare facilities to delay implementation of technologically advanced treatment tools. For this reason, medical facilities should institute health IT platforms as soon as they can, so that familiarity will help breed partiality among physicians for these systems.
Related posts: