Adoption of EHRs in Medical Offices Owned by Hospitals and Health Systems Jumps 10 Percent

IRVINE, CA–(Marketwire – October 25, 2010) –  Medical offices owned by hospitals and health systems are the leaders in adopting electronic healthcare records (EHR) technology, according to the latest results of an ongoing survey released today by SK&A, A Cegedim Company, a leading provider of healthcare information solutions and research.

Results from the biannual survey, “Physician Office Usage of Electronic Healthcare Records Software,” show the greatest jump in adoption rates between January and October 2010 was with medical offices owned by hospitals and health systems.

According to the report, EHR adoption at hospital-owned offices grew from 44.1 percent to 54.9 percent (10.8% increase), and adoption at heath-system-owned offices grew from 50.2 percent to 61.2 percent (11% increase). Overall, U.S. medical office EHR adoption has grown from 36.1 percent to 38.7 percent, a 3 percent increase.

“It’s not surprising healthcare-system and hospital-owned medical offices have the highest adoption rates across the board,” said Proteus Duxbury, a managing consultant with PA Consulting Group, an international management and systems technology consulting firm. “Recently added exceptions to Stark Safe Harbor laws have made it possible for primary care physicians to receive aid from healthcare systems, or use the same EMRs, so they become the early adopters who can take the leap of faith with EMR technology.”

As the 2011 incentive payments for the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009” near, U.S. physicians are steadily beginning to purchase and implement healthcare information technology systems. According to business research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, the rate of EHR adoption among physicians is expected to increase over the next two to five years due to a combination of changes caused by healthcare reform, doubling 2009 EHR market revenues of $1.3 billion to an estimated $2.6 billion in 2012.

SK&A assumed a leading role in measuring medical-office adoption rates of EHR in August 2008 when it officially started the survey targeting every medical office in the U.S. Today, through its comprehensive survey methodology, SK&A offers deep insight for understanding adoption trends, validating the EHR market size and opportunity, and supporting the execution of sales and marketing campaigns.

“The results of the latest survey indicate substantial opportunities for EHR solution providers. Most of the opportunity is associated with small, mid-size, and privately owned practices that have yet to purchase and install EHR systems,” said Dave Escalante, SK&A’s Vice President of Data and Information Solutions. “SK&A’s EHR database is able to identify all the medical offices and physicians in the U.S. that represent a business opportunity for our health IT clients, allowing them to develop sales and marketing strategies and target by geography, specialty, office size, ownership, affiliation and other variables.”

SK&A is actively measuring the EHR brands that have been deployed in medical offices and the types of EHR software functionality being used by physicians in the office. The most commonly used EHR functions are electronic patient notes (28.4%), electronic labs/x-rays (27.3%) and electronic prescribing (25.9%). In addition, SK&A’s survey identifies the medical offices that have not adopted an EHR and is recording their expected timeframes for adoption, the primary factors and decision makers for making EHR purchases, and the awareness of available government incentives.

Other findings of the current report include:

• Physician offices with more exam rooms, more physicians on staff and higher daily patient volumes have the highest EHR adoption rates.
• Physician specialties with the highest adoption rates are radiology (59.9%), pathology (59.8%), aerospace medicine (59.5%), dialysis (59.3%) and emergency medicine (57.6 %).
• Northern (40.9%) and Southern (40.1%) states have the highest rates of adoption.
• The top three leading states for adoption are Minnesota (62.6%), Utah (55.4%) and Wisconsin (52.3%).

SK&A’s report is an ongoing study of U.S. physician offices, featuring EHR adoption data and summarized market research from 213,500 medical offices representing 643,000 physicians. In addition, SK&A is able to identify the IT-purchasing decision makers at the practice- and group-headquarter level who would most likely be responsible for making the EHR-solution decisions.

Editor’s Note: For a copy of the summary findings for publication, please contact Jack Schember, SK&A Director of Marketing, at 800-752-5478, ext. 1259.

About SK&A, A Cegedim Company:
SK&A is a leading provider of healthcare information solutions and research. SK&A, as part of Cegedim’s global OneKey® offering, researches and maintains contact and profiling information for over two million healthcare practitioners, including 800,000-plus prescribers. SK&A also offers the only 100-percent telephone-verified database of email addresses of U.S. prescribers and professionals working at active healthcare sites. SK&A’s customers include many of America’s most recognized healthcare, life sciences and pharmaceutical companies. Please visit www.skainfo.com for more information or www.skalivecounts.com for counts and ordering. 

About Cegedim:
Founded in 1969, Cegedim is a global technology and services company specializing in the healthcare field. Cegedim supplies services, technological tools, specialized software, data flow management services and databases. Its offerings are targeted notably at healthcare industries, life sciences companies, healthcare professionals and insurance companies. The world leader in life sciences CRM, Cegedim is also one of the leading suppliers of strategic healthcare industry data. Cegedim employs 8,600 people in more than 80 countries and generated revenue of EUR 874 million in 2009. Cegedim SA is listed in Paris (EURONEXT: CGM).
To learn more, please visit: www.cegedim.com

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