Increased adoption of health information technology will help Pennsylvania patients gain access to care, but it is slowed by the high cost of the technology, lack of resources, and the affordability and availability of broadband Internet access, the Pennsylvania Medical Society’s ConnectTheDocs study found.
"The health care community in Pennsylvania must find ways to accelerate the use of technology, especially in rural areas of the state, to meet an increasing need for such care by an aging population," said Peter Lund, MD, president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society.
Access to medical specialists in many rural Pennsylvania communities is difficult, the report said. For example, more than 3 million Pennsylvanians live more than 25 miles as the crow flies from the nearest high-risk pregnancy specialist.
In addition, Pennsylvania is ranked 37th in the nation for actively practicing physicians per 10,000 elderly citizens. The concentration of elderly citizens is greater in rural areas, they may be less likely to travel long distances to specialists to seek treatment. Making telemedicine available in rural communities would give patients and their local physicians computerized access to consultations with specialists without having to travel.
For physicians, better telecommunications connectivity means they can use new tools that improve their efficiency, including ePrescribing, consulting electronically with specialists on radiology and other diagnostic tests, and communicating better with hospitals.
Patients whose physicians use these electronic tools benefit directly through decreased prescription errors, more timely access to records, and, ultimately, reduction in duplicate testing.
"Clearly, investments in communications technology within health care would ultimately help Pennsylvanians gain better access to medical care," said Dr. Lund.
Only 25.6 percent of physicians surveyed use a T1 line, which is often necessary to support health information technology. Only 9.4 percent of physicians already connected to the Internet use technology for telemedicine and 19.7 percent use an electronic medical records system. In addition, 1 percent of those surveyed do not have access to even the most basic broadband service.
The ConnectTheDocs survey, a project led by the Pennsylvania Medical Society, was funded by a grant from the Broadband and Outreach Aggregation Fund (BOAF) through the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Department of Health.