Home Forums Discussions General Discussion ACP position paper on physician administrative responsibilities

The report can be found here. Buried in a lengthy and verbose paper that tries to take a scholarly approach are some interesting points.
For example, "Although the original intent behind the design of EHRs was to facilitate patient management and care, the technology largely has been co-opted for other purposes. Payers see the EHR as the source of billing documentation. Health care enterprises see it as a tool for enforcing compliance with organizational directives. The legal system sees the EHR as a statement of legal facts. Public health entities see it as a way to use clinicians to collect their data at drastically reduced costs. Measurement entities see the EHR as a way to automate the collection of measure data, reducing their reliance on chart abstraction. Governmental entities see it as a way to observe and enforce compliance with regulations. All these impositions on EHR systems have created distractions from their potential value in supporting care delivery. Vendors of EHR systems consider it their primary responsibility to meet the requirements of all of these entities. They argue that the time required to meet all these nonclinical requirements leaves them no time to enhance the value of EHR systems for clinical care. The ability of these systems to support care delivery will not improve unless physicians and others who deliver care insist that the functions needed by clinicians and their patients take priority over nonclinical requirements.

Jon,
Yes the horse left the barn years ago.
Unfortunately enough physicians, especially those in an employed position, will play the game because of the almighty dollar.
Saying no to being a data collector ultimately loses one about 9%, i am willing to flip em the bird and live on less.
The looming bigger issue is if the private insurers or even licensure is ultimately tied to the 'measures' being collected.
If licensure gets tied to it then even the 'Cash only' practice option becomes nil.
I'm sure EHR vendors all tout how they have improved the clinical utility of their EHR.

Koby,
I certainly understand your decision to flip em the bird. Some do that based on principle, and many of us make a calculation (is the pay cut worth the time and expense to "participate").
And yes, to some extent the horse is out of the barn, but I the battle goes on. I know that the people at AC have grappled with this issue for years - at least since the onset of MU - and that they continue to do so. I think they have been relatively successful; just compare an AC note to one from Epic or Cerner.
Generally I am not a big believer that our medical societies represent us well. This paper describes the situation clearly and as it says, we must keep reminding AC that "the functions needed by clinicians and their patients take priority over nonclinical requirements".

Haven't paid any attention to Dr Price about if he intends to address this subject, suppose he should be a focal point.