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Networks of small health care provider practices can offer guidance on how to overcome challenges to adopting and using health IT, according to a study by the Center for Studying Health System Change, Healthcare IT News reports.
Researchers focused on the health IT activities at five organizations. The study was based on telephone interviews from March to May 2010 with individuals who worked in or had an affiliation with the organizations.
Key Findings
According to the study, networks of small practices — called independent practice associations — can serve as models of how to provide coordinated assistance with health IT activities to other practices that are relatively small or independent.
Researchers found that in the IPAs, physicians familiar with health IT were able to help other clinicians with less health IT knowledge start using electronic health records.
Paul Ginsburg, co-author of the study and president of the center, said that “identifying physician leaders who can bridge the gap between technology and clinical care is a powerful way to help physicians in small practices overcome barriers to [health IT] adoption” (Manos, Healthcare IT News, 6/30).