WASHINGTON – The public holds mixed views when it comes to the use of electronic medical records, with most believing it's important to adopt EMR technology and that doing so would improve the country's healthcare system, according to a new survey conducted by National Public Radio, Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health.
"The Public and the Health Care Delivery System" reveals that Americans also question both the confidentiality of an electronic health record system a system and its potential for cost savings.
Three of every four respondents say it's important for their healthcare providers to use electronic medical records. A large proportion of the public also sees benefits to nationwide adoption.
A majority of those surveyed also say that with greater adoption of an EMR system in the United States, their own doctors would do a better job coordinating their care (72 percent say this is at least somewhat likely), the overall quality of care in the country would be improved (67 percent) and fewer people would get unnecessary medical care (58 percent.) Just more than half (53 percent) say there would be fewer medical errors.
Although many proponents of EMRs believe they will lower healthcare costs, a majority of Americans surveyed don't think this is likely. More say the adoption of electronic records would increase the cost of healthcare rather than decrease the cost (34 percent vs. 22 percent). Significantly more say moving toward computer-based medical records is likely to increase their own family's healthcare costs (39 percent) rather than bring down their own costs (12 percent).
The remainder of those surveyed thought the change would make little difference either way or didn't know enough about the subject to answer.
There are also significant concerns about the privacy of online health records. Roughly six in 10 Americans (59 percent) lack confidence that EMR systems would be able to protect the confidentiality of patients' records. And an even larger percentage (76 percent) think it's at least somewhat likely that "an unauthorized person" would get access to their records if they were placed online.
Americans may not currently be able to identify whether their providers are using an EMR, according to the survey. One in 10 say they have been able to access medical test results online. And nearly half (46 percent) said their doctor enters their health information into a computer while they are present.
The telephone survey was conducted March 12-22, 2009 among a nationally representative sample of 1,238 randomly selected respondents ages 18 and over.
