EMRs embraced Adoption rates of electronic medical records are highest among physicians in rural British Columbia
BY CURT CHEREWAYKO
E
lectronic medical records (EMRs) are key tools in the push to digitize and thereby improve the efficiency of health care. The primary governmental agency for driving adoption of EMRs in British Columbia is optimistic that its success to date will result in renewed funding when its first six-year mandate expires in spring 2012. The Physician Information Technology Office (PITO), co-run by the province and the British Columbia Medical Association (BCMA), received 107.8 million from B.C. to use largely in incentives for doctors to replace their manila file folders with EMR software. By December 2011, 65 per cent of B.C.’s 8,000 physicians had made the transition to EMRs. Of these, 5,500 are eligible to receive reimbursement from PITO of up to 70 per cent of the costs of buying and implementing EMRs. “We are very optimistic based on what both the BCMA and the Ministry of Health have said to us about the importance of EMR in health care,” says Linda Bartz, senior communications manager, PITO. “We have lots of plans that we have initiated to step up adoption and implementation.” Such plans include creating working groups of “super-users,” physicians who use EMR software to its fullest capabilities and who can help better train all doctors to use it. Interestingly, EMR adoption rates are highest outside of Vancouver, Victoria and the Fraser Valley, bucking the usual trend of urban-first, rural-second when it comes to technology.
The Salmon Arm region has the provTelus is a major partner in deince’s highest adoption rate, with roughly 90 veloping B.C.’s tele-heath system, which per cent of physicians in the area using EMRs. includes videoconferencing for doctors, schedule-management and remote Bartz says that doctors in smaller patient-monitoring. communities usually work more closely together, sharing emergency-room, on-call “Different jurisdictions are at different and other duties. Efficient sharing of medplaces in their investment in terms of ical records is thus more necessary there. e-health,” says Glenn De Roy, viceMark Sudul, general manager of Sidney’s president of health delivery solutions at Osler Systems Management Inc., one of Telus Health Solutions. four PITO vendors that provide subsidized EMR software, says that the funding incentives are important but not the only factor driving adoption of EMRs. “There are a significant number of doctors who haven’t taken advantage of any of those incentives and still use EMRs,” he says. Over approximately five years, Vancouver-based Telus Corp. has spent roughly a bilMedPalz, an interactive game from Telus, teaches lion dollars on information children with diabetes about exercise and nutrition technology related to health care, including 763 million on the acquisition of health and financial“One of the missing pieces of the services provider Emergis Inc. in early 2008. architecture to date is, How do you share In Newfoundland, Telus is helping information across all these different ordevelop a province-wide electronic drugganizations and do it in an effective and information system. timely way?” It’s also piloting a personal health-care That’s where cloud computing comes platform that supports Alberta’s goal of in. It’s the idea of storing information rehelping consumers become more promotely where it can be shared, accessed active in managing their health. and distributed through various channels With doctors still getting a feel for new to multiple stakeholders. electronic systems, it is difficult to assess Says De Roy, “We see a need to deyet the impact of EMRs on the delivery of liver health-care solutions using that care. It’s clear that there is still room for cloud-based model to enable inforimprovement when it comes to the use of mation to be shared across the entire digital health-care tools. health-care continuum.” Ą BIV Magazines
Life Sciences 2012.indd 13
LifeSciences/2012
13
3/19/12 8:49:28 PM
f
C
e