How do you think the Academy is doing in encouraging FPs to adopt electronic health records?
A. The Academy is leading the charge in the field of EHR implementation, especially in trying to make people comfortable adopting EHRs. But the Academy needs to push insurance companies and the government to stop studying EHR issues and start paying to put EHRs in physicians’ offices. We need to push the standardization/interoperability issues that Dr. Henley (EVP Douglas Henley, M.D.) is working on with CMS. The certification process is what is really needed. We have to know which EHR systems can meet the ACID principles: affordability, compatibility, interoperability and data stewardship. Up until the last couple of years, there have not been any products that have really been ready for family medicine. But now, people are paying more attention to how our records should be, so we can get products that will work. Q. Short of EHRs, how are electronic technology and other innovations facilitating patient care? A. I use an online database that gives the average price of a drug per month.
