Pressure is growing on physician practices nationwide to implement EHRs, but the national rate still hovers around 62 percent.
A survey from SK&A, a research company based in Irvine, Calif., found the rate of EHR implementation increases with the size of the practice. Small practices still lag behind in implementation in 2015, particularly in more narrow specialties such as forensic psychology and holistic medicine. Hospital-owned practices led the pack in EHR implementation, followed by health-system owned practices.
Here are 10 quick statistics from the report.
1. 78.9 percent of practices that see more than 101 patients daily had implemented EHRs as of January 2015. That's 2.6 percent higher than in January 2014.
2. 79.5 percent of practices with between 11 and 25 physicians had EHRs as of January 2015, the highest percentage of any bracket SK&A classified. Bigger practices, with 26 or more physicians, had a 77.2 percent implementation rate.
3. 70.9 percent of hospital-owned sites have implemented EHRs compared to 70 percent of health system-owned and approximately 61 percent of independent practices .
4. 78.8 percent of practices with 11 or more exam rooms had an EHR system. By contrast, 60.6 percent of practices with two exam rooms had an EHR, but only 33.7 percent of practices with one exam room had one.
5. 65.5 percent of practices in the north have implemented EHRs. The south follows closely at 64.6 percent, followed by the west at 61.7 percent and 59.2 percent in the east.
6. 76.37 percent of internal medicine and pediatric practices used EHRs, making them the leading specialties. Radiology followed at 70.61 percent, then urology at 70.09 percent, pathology at 70.02 percent and nuclear medicine at 69.86 percent.
7. 24 percent of forensic psychology practices had EHRs, making it the bottom specialty in EHR implementation.
8. 73.99 percent of practices in Wyoming had EHR systems, making it the top state. South Dakota followed at 71.68 percent, then Utah at 71.07 percent, Iowa at 70.27 percent and Arkansas at 69.27 percent.
9. 54.2 percent of practices in Rhode Island had EHRs, making it the bottom state for system implementation.
10. 62.8 percent of the overall U.S. respondents had an EHR system. That is 1.8 percent higher than in January 2014.