Technology appears to have played a large part in increased confidence among a majority of small practices, if a new report from electronic health record vendor Practice Fusion is any indication.
According to the company's second annual State of the Small Practice report, unveiled this week, technology--specifically EHR systems, websites and smartphones--has "made things easier" for 60 percent of small practices surveyed, the company said in an announcement. Comments from doctors regarding the survey provided to FierceHealthIT by Practice Fusion indicated that speedier e-prescribing and patient scheduling features were among the technologies easing processes.
Meanwhile, more practices are using newer technology, as 26 percent of respondents said they were using computers less than a year old, while 38 percent said that their computers were more than three years old. In contrast, 73 percent of practices in last year's survey said they were using computers more than three years old.
The survey also uncovered that only about 4 percent of small practice providers consider themselves to be "experts" when it comes to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Act for EHR incentives. Slightly more than half of the respondents (52 percent) indicated that they had "moderate" knowledge regarding EHR incentives.
More than 1,100 providers responded to the survey.
For more information:
- read the Practice Fusion announcement