Health information technology and physician perceptions of quality of care and satisfaction

Steve Hards

A new analysis of health information technology (IT) deployment in seven industrialized countries finds that physicians’ adoption of health IT is highly variable, with the United States  lagging well behind the other countries. The study, conducted by Karen Davis and Commonwealth Fund researchers and published in the journal Health Policy, also found that physicians with greater IT capacity were more likely to report feeling well prepared to manage patients with chronic illnesses. Use of electronic medical records ranges from nearly all physicians in the Netherlands to only 23 percent in Canada and 28 percent in the U.S., according to the survey findings. Item on the Commonwealth Fund website has an interesting comparative chart.