Becker's Hospital Review

36 Health IT H ere are 25 statistics, data points and key numbers to know about the health IT industry. 1. The Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare estimates the healthcare industry can save about $8.1 billion annually, including $6.7 billion in sav- ings for healthcare providers and $1.4 billion for health plans each year, through additional conver- sions from manual to electronic transactions. 2. In 2012, paper-based claims submissions cost the healthcare system $2.58 each while electronic claims submissions only cost the healthcare sys- tem $0.54 each. 3. In 2013, 59 percent of non-federal acute-care hospitals in the U.S. had adopted at least a basic EHR system, according to the ONC, a 34 percent increase over 2012. 4. A majority of physicians — 83 percent — re- port they are using EHRs, according to a Med- scape survey. 5. Since 2011, CMS has paid out almost $25 bil- lion in incentive payments for the adoption and use of EHRs to hospitals and physicians. 6. By 2013, 89 percent of critical access hospitals had installed full or partial EHRs, although many CAHs did not meet the meaningful use criteria. 7. The EHR market is estimated to reach $9.3 bil- lion annually by the end of 2015, and will likely continue to grow until at least 2018, according to a report from Kalorama Information. 8. The number of jobs for EHR technicians is ex- pected to grow 22 percent, from 186,300 to 227,400 positions, between 2012 and 2022, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Labor. 9. A recent survey found a majority of patients — 83 percent — expect hospitals to use EHRs, but only 53 percent said they trust the safety and se- curity of the software. 10. Physicians are less likely than the nursing staff to be confident in their organization's ability to navi- gate meaningful use, according to a study in BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making. Only 28.4 percent of physicians indicated confidence, while 47.1 percent of nurses reported confidence. 11. As of Jan. 1, approximately 257,000 eligible professionals faced a 1 percent Medicare payment adjustment for failing to meet meaningful use requirements. Approximately 28,000 eligible pro- fessionals will see a 2 percent reimbursement ad- justment for failing to meet both meaningful use and the Electronic Prescribing Incentive Program. 12. When patients are given control over who can access their data, approximately one half opted to restrict access for their healthcare providers, found a study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. 13. The global mHealth market is expected to be worth approximately $49.1 billion by 2020, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 49.7 percent. 14. Nearly half of physicians — 48 percent — used mHealth to determine medication interac- 25 Health IT Data Points on EHRs, MU, mHealth and Big Data By Akanksha Jayanthi Mr. Lance with North Highland, however, thinks it's too soon to jump ship. "If we stay with the concept of version one, this is version one of many things," he says. "Has it been hard to implement and more costly than we expected? Yes. Will it morph into something else? Probably so. But the idea of shared data that crosses a network of facilities that can be used by patients, clinicians and other physicians — my belief is that it will evolve over time." He adds, "I don't think you can…[throw] the baby out with the bathwater in version one." Lesson three: It isn't what you have, it's what you make of it If there is one overarching, all-consuming investment in healthcare IT, it is the EHR. Again, the federal government itself has invested upwards of $26 billion in EHR meaningful use incentives, and hospitals — be it due to these regulatory demands or otherwise — are largely and quickly implementing such technolo- gies, especially smaller and mid-sized hospitals and health systems. Mr. Sensor anticipates seeing even more expenditures surrounding EHRs in the upcoming year, but he also notes that the EHR alone isn't the key puzzle piece. "Many, like myself, have come to realization that the EMR is really simply an electronic medical record," he says. "It's simply a repository of data around the patient. And most of the industry has found, in and of itself, there is very little return on investment from simply having that EMR. The real return is going to be generated by mining that information and leveraging it in a way that we can provide more efficient care." Essentially, the EHR isn't going to revolutionize healthcare. What the industry does with it will. Industry professionals are already looking to enhance the EHR and utilize it for strategic purposes beyond just meeting federal requirements. "A lot of people made the investment in Epic, Cerner, McKesson," Mr. Lance says, calling these health IT vendors "heavy iron." He continues, "People are now looking at IT to see if they can put some type of cloud-based layer above those systems. There's a lot of exploration around, 'How do I put this layer on top of my heavy investment where it's lighter and more flexible and easier to implement?'" Mr. Sensor adds another example, such as tools to automate discharge pro- cesses using information collected in the EHR or predictive analytics. "We all agree in the industry that EMRs are a necessary technology, but it's those sorts of additional efficacies that ultimately will begin to generate the ROI that we all hope for relative to EMRs," Mr. Sensor says. Continuous investments Undoubtedly, this country has invested a significant amount of time and energy — and likely blood, sweat and tears — into health IT initiatives. And while $26 billion sounds like an astronomical number, it really isn't all that much when compared to the IT spend of other industries, Mr. Sensor says. "Our per capita spending in healthcare is actually more modest than virtually all of those other prescribed industries," Mr. Sensor says, mentioning industries such as banking and retail. "But it is increasing, and frankly, I think given the quantity of data that we're now attempting to leverage and utilize effectively, it will have to continue to increase." Eventually, though, Mr. Elley with Owensboro Health says the investment will make itself clear, and the healthcare industry will start seeing costs go down — the way it wants them to go. "If we improve care delivery, if we can make it easier to access care, if we can make it safer to receive care and if we can provide you better outcomes be- cause of all this data we have, in the end, the patient is going to improve," says Mr. Elley. "IT is going to be the primary driver of driving down those costs." n

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