Physicians Spooked by Failure Stories—EHR Adoption Suffers

By Evan Steele, CEO SRSsoft on EMR Smart Talk

A significant portion of the physician market has still not adopted an EHR, despite the lure of government incentives and the fear of the penalties looming on the horizon. The stock prices of most publicly traded ambulatory EHR companies are down sharply, as sales are lower and earnings projections have not been met throughout the industry. How can this be, when the EHR incentive program has successfully increased EHR adoption and was expected to be such a boon to EHR vendors?

I know why, and it is not—as commonly thought—because the initial EHR-adoption rush fostered by the incentives has ended. Rather, it is because of rampant physician dissatisfaction that has reached a more-than-palpable level. I have noticed a dramatic change in the tenor of conversations with physicians, most recently at professional society conferences, where physicians who have not yet purchased an EHR are frozen in their tracks. They are worried by the horror stories they hear from colleagues—even from those who have succeeded at meaningful use—because many of those physicians continue to experience major workflow disruptions and significant productivity losses from which they see no potential to rebound. Recent surveys point to the number of physicians looking to replace their EHRs, and based on my company’s experience in the replacement market, that number is growing. A recent article summarized the findings of a large study on EHR satisfaction and presented an insightful analysis of the potential reasons for these disappointing results.

This heightened level of frustration has resulted from frantic, insufficiently researched EHR purchase decisions by physicians and rushed, inadequate implementations conducted by resource-strapped vendors. Massive EHR failures are exactly what I predicted in an EMR Straight Talk post on the unintended consequences of the EHR incentive program in February 2010:

After an initial peak in implementations, long-term EHR adoption will slow—particularly among high-performance specialists—and the current failure rate will escalate. Many factors will contribute to this: (1) Some physicians will rush into EHR purchases without conducting proper due diligence. (2) Products that were overly complex and did not work in busy specialists’ practices in the past will surely not succeed now, particularly since these same products must now be used in an even more structured and demanding way. (3) Sorely needed implementation and training will be provided by inexperienced and rushed implementation teams, further reducing the likelihood of success with providers, many of whom are less technologically savvy than the early adopters. (4) Where there was never a convincing economic justification in the past, the addition of data-collection requirements will further lessen the economic feasibility of traditional, point-and-click EHRs. . . . The result? The high failure rate will leave physicians “holding the bag” after investing large sums of money, failing to earn the anticipated incentives, and owning a system that doesn’t meet their needs.

So, what can physicians do to avoid falling victim to EHR failure, and to instead reap the benefits of successful EHR adoption—government incentives and practice productivity? I have written extensively about the importance of physicians doing thorough and objective reference checking—that advice is as valid now as when I first wrote about it, and perhaps is even more critical today. For guidance on how to conduct a thorough and fair evaluation of an EHR, read EMR Selection: How to Uncover the Truth or 100% EHR Success – A Clinical Approach.