ENGLEWOOD, CO – The changes in practice operations necessary to meet the 25 “meaningful use” criteria proposed as part of the federal electronic health record (EHR) incentive program would lead to decreased provider productivity, according to research conducted by the Medical Group Management Association.

Respondents to MGMA’s questionnaire were asked to estimate the change in provider productivity resulting from the implementation of all 25 of the meaningful use criteria, not including the temporary decrease in productivity that occurs with any implementation of a new EHR. More than two-thirds of respondents (67.9 percent) said that physician productivity would decrease, with 31 percent stating that physician productivity would decrease more than 10 percent.

"For the incentive program to succeed, the meaningful use criteria must be practical and achievable,” said William F. Jessee, MD, MGMA president and CEO. “If the final rule mirrors those outlined in the current proposal, there is a significant risk that the program will fail to meet the intent of the legislation, and that a historic opportunity to transform the nation’s healthcare system will be missed.”

"In order to justify the high cost of software, hardware and staff training, the deployment of an EHR system in a medical group must produce administrative efficiencies and not result in a sustained and significant decrease in productivity,” he said. “It is clear that the transition to electronic health information technologies must begin by successfully aligning incentives with overall cost to the implementing entities.”

The MGMA research also highlighted specific criteria that many respondents said would be “difficult” or “very difficult” to achieve.

These include:

• The proposed requirement that 80 percent of all patient requests for an electronic copy of their health information be fulfilled within 48 hours (45.9 percent) and
• The proposed requirement that 10 percent of all patients be given electronic access to their health information within 96 hours of the information being available (53.5 percent).

“We remain strong advocates for the adoption of EHRs in medical groups and urge the administration to significantly streamline the incentive program requirements in the final rule to permit dramatically larger numbers of practices to embrace this important technology,” Jessee said.

MGMA conducted the research in February 2010, and data include feedback from 445 respondents representing providers in medical group practices throughout the United States.