Fully implemented HIT system improves healthcare quality and access, according to survey

Oct 3 2009

Healthcare reform may have Americans divided on the best way forward, but broad consensus exists around one strategy for cutting costs, increasing access and improving quality: Healthcare Information Technology (HIT). A new survey commissioned by the Career College Association (CCA) and TechAmerica and conducted by Harris Interactive(R) reveals that three of four U.S. adults believe a fully implemented HIT system will have a positive outcome for healthcare quality and access, while 64 percent believe it will have a positive outcome on healthcare costs for patients. There was widespread agreement of opinion across gender, age group, educational attainment, household income and marital status.

HIT involves applying automation to multiple aspects of healthcare delivery:

• creation and storage of medical records;
• point of care systems providing bedside diagnostics and testing;
• telemedicine for enhanced online diagnostics, treatment and education;
• remote monitoring for assessing chronic conditions and patient compliance;
• e-prescriptions that eliminate handwriting mistakes and flag negative drug interactions;
• and the clinical and back office systems that improve efficiency and effectiveness in hospitals, ambulatory and long term care facilities and related venues.

Though strongly supportive of HIT, high percentages of adults expressed concerns about the availability of appropriately educated healthcare workers to use the new technology properly. Sixty-two percent of adults either agree or strongly agree that one of the reasons that HIT is not more widely used in the U.S. is because of lack of trained personnel. Twice as many adults indicated that there are not enough people trained in using HIT (33 percent) as those who agreed that the popularity of the HIT field is attracting adequate numbers of people for training (17 percent).

HIT could also help Americans adopt healthier lifestyles, the survey indicates, in addition to its contribution to healthcare reform. Three out of five adults (61 percent) agree that people would adopt healthier behaviors if IT systems and well-trained personnel to help them use the technology were more widely available in venues such as drug stores, health clubs, recreation centers, school and other places readily accessible to the public. This suggests that as HIT becomes more pervasive, achieving its potential could also place strains on the human capital support system needed to design, install, implement, maintain, use, and upgrade these solutions--and to educate care recipients in how best to use them.

The survey results show recognition of HIT's important future role and strong support for HIT generally, with 43 percent of adults believing that "we cannot go back in time and everything in society is being computerized, including medical records" and 41 percent of adults agreeing that "it would be more costly not to computerize healthcare records." This 41 percent is nearly four times higher than the percentage of adults who thought (11 percent) that "conversion to an electronic system of record-keeping and transmission of information in the healthcare industry is too costly." While 35 percent registered concerns about the impact of this technology on personal privacy, 25 percent said that they feel "that there are adequate protections in place to assure the confidentiality of my healthcare records."

"Healthcare IT is long overdue, and the American people get that," said CCA President Harris N. Miller. "We need to get the workforce prepared so that HIT can help healthcare organizations eliminate mistakes, improve coordination and outcomes, and speed services to patients. HIT means healthcare better, cheaper, faster. HIT can also help the healthcare establishment evolve, with more services provided in the community rather than in the emergency room and delivered on a preventative rather than on an acute care basis. With 4,800 programs and over 200,000 graduates in a variety of healthcare fields, career colleges across the country are doing their part to build a highly skilled HIT workforce."

TechAmerica President Phil Bond agreed, noting, "The survey proves that in this case, the policy and the politics match up: America has already waited far too long to realize the benefits of technology in healthcare. When the investments are finally made, we may not have the workforce to fully capitalize on them. How many more lives and how many more dollars could we save with sufficient talent?"

Also of note in the survey findings:

• Forty-four percent of adults said that they have either personally experienced or noticed HIT applications in their doctor's office or hospital;
• Electronic medical records in lieu of paper are the most common type of application noticed--nearly six out of ten (59 percent) in the "noticed" group;
• Two-thirds of adults (67 percent) say they believe their own doctors or hospitals are adequately trained in HIT;
• College graduates (16 percent) and those with household incomes above $75,000 (15 percent) were twice as likely as those with high school degrees or less (9 percent) and those with household incomes less than $35,000 (7 percent) to have doubts about their healthcare professionals' training in HIT.

Harris Interactive(R) fielded the study on behalf of Career College Association from August 28 - September 1, 2009 via its QuickQuery(SM) online omnibus service, interviewing a nationwide sample of 2,175 U.S. adults aged 18 years and older. Data were weighted using propensity score weighting to be representative of the total U.S. adult population on the basis of region, age within gender, education, household income, race/ethnicity, and propensity to be online. No estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated; a full methodology is available.