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Doctors resist the use of electronic health records because they fear the data will be used to control "what they do and how they do it," according to a recently released survey by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. The survey of more than 400 doctors, conducted last month, aimed to get at their attitudes about the adoption of healthcare IT. Many doctors who responded to the survey said they would rather retire in their 50s than adopt EHRs. Eighty-one percent of the respondents said their practice does not use EHRs. Fear of the government's interference in their practice was one of the top reasons doctors gave for resistance to adoption, the study showed. Other top reasons included privacy concerns, concern about return on investment, lack of capital to invest in healthcare IT and preference for using their own hand-written notes.

"EHR is designed for outside groups to monitor what is going on in a clinical encounter," said one doctor in the survey, who responded anonymously. "It slows the physician down. It is intrusive and there is great risk of information misuse. The adoption of EHR by my network has been one of the saddest events of my medical practice."

The American Medical Association does not hold the same view. Healthcare IT "has the potential to transform the way physicians practice medicine," said AMA board member Steven Stack, MD. "The promise of HIT is that physicians will receive information in real-time that will lead to dramatic improvements in quality care."

So far, Congress has proposed, debated and failed to pass a healthcare IT advancement bill. The latest bill, "The Protecting Records, Optimizing Treatment, and Easing Communication through Healthcare Technology Act of 2008," or the PRO(TECH)T Act, was introduced June 25 by John Dingell (D-Mich. ) , chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and had bipartisan support.
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Get the full article here http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9493&page=1

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