AMA's Program Helps Small Physician Practices Adopt EHRsAMA's Program Helps Small Physician Practices Adopt EHRs

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The American Medical Association has unveiled a series of six video tutorials providing step-by-step instructions to help physicians choose, purchase, and implement electronic health records, or EHRs.

Launched last week, the program was developed as part of the AMA's continuing medical education activities. It targets small physician practices that don't have EHR technology, the organization said.

"We created the series as a primer for physicians and practice staff to understand the key stages of health IT adoption and the implications of the current regulatory environment," said Steven Stack, the AMA's board secretary. "Even though the adoption of health IT is growing, there is still a very large constituency--particularly those in small practices--that is not using health IT today, and most of us access the healthcare system through the small practice."

According to a document With many smaller physician group practices lacking the IT skills and resources to navigate the plethora of EHR technology available, the aim of the program is to give users the ability to formulate an approach to adoption of health information technology as well as utilize information about health IT adoption practices and procedures that will lead to successful adoption of the technology.

The first video presents an overview of the impact of health IT on the practice of medicine and its likely effect on a practice.

The second video helps participants assess their own practices to determine their need for health IT and to collect the information they need to select an EHR and prepare for implementation.

The third video helps participants decide which type of EHR would best fit their practice and gives them some pointers on how to select a specific vendor.

The fourth video explains how physicians and staff can plan and prepare for their EHR and describes methods they can use to reap the most benefit with the least pain.

The fifth video presents a variety of ways to implement an EHR.

Finally, the sixth video talks about what to expect and plan for once the practice has implemented an EHR.

"A physician or staff person should be prepared to take notes. They can even print the transcript, write on it, and think about how to apply the guidance to their practice," Stack said. "The important thing is to get started. That doesn't mean a practice will be ready to buy an EHR the next day, but they should know at a high level how to prepare for, select, and implement health IT."

According to the AMA, "Incentive payments of as much as $44,000 (through Medicare) and $63,750 (through Medicaid) per clinician are available from 2011-2016 for Medicare and 2021 for Medicaid. This funding is intended to provide support to achieve the creation of a nationwide system of EHRs used to improve overall U.S. healthcare quality and value."

The organization encourages physicians to register for the program using computers that have Internet Explorer 6.0 (or higher), Mozilla Firefox 1.5 (or higher), or Safari 1.3 (or higher) and Adobe Flash Player 8.0 (or higher).

Participants will be required to complete a self-assessment and will receive a CME certificate once they've completed the program with a 100% score.