The National Association of Community Health Centers is calling on Congress to subsidize the cost of installing and using e-medical records at health clinics that serve uninsured, low-income and homeless patients.
At a briefing on Capitol Hill last week, association leaders released early findings of a national survey showing that although 18 percent of physicians with private office practices use e-medical records (EMRs), only 8 percent of federally funded health centers do so.
Even before the briefing, the health centers had found a supporter in the departing national health IT coordinator. Dr. David Brailer told reporters during a press conference after announcing his resignation from the federal government that so-called safety net health providers might need some extra help if they are to meet President Bush’s goal of EMRs for most Americans.
In an interview with Government Health IT, Brailer said that although he believes most of the health care industry will invest in health IT eventually, about 15 percent of doctors, particularly in rural areas and poorer neighborhoods, won’t be able to acquire systems on their own. They lack both capital and technical resources, he said.
“We can’t get 85 percent of the way and stop there,” Brailer said. “We have to take it as a national obligation to make sure that this is not a technology that haves have and have-nots don’t.”
The association’s survey found that capital shortages, the need to integrate an EMR system with existing billing or claims systems, and transition costs were the chief obstacles to the adoption of EMRs at the clinics and health centers. Sixty percent have plans to install EMR systems, according to an association fact sheet.
The health centers “run the risk of ending up on the wrong side of health care’s digital divide,” Dan Hawkins, policy director for the association, said in a statement.
Congressional refusal to provide extra help for clinical information technology “could well doom health centers and other safety-net providers to a permanent second-class status within our already flawed health care system,” Hawkins said. “…Congress has a real opportunity to assist them.”
Kevin Kearns, chief executive officer of the Health Choice network of health centers, said he often hears that those who pay for health care – mostly insurance companies, employers, government agencies and patients – should pay for technology. But more than half the 400,000 patients at his organization’s centers lack insurance, he said, so there is no payer to foot the bill for EMRs.
“Where does that leave us?” Kearns asked. He said patients such as those at Health Choice centers can benefit the most from health IT.
Dr. Neal Calman, president of the Institute for Urban Family Health in New York City, said the institute spent about $30 per patient for its EMR system and has found that it greatly improves patients’ health. It also will reduce costs in the long run, he said.
Government Health IT presents Liesa Jo Jenkins, executive director of CareSpark, in this recent eSeminar, where she shared her experiences and insight into building a health information exchange that enhances community health, rewards regional collaboration and drives economic progress.
