A survey from The Commonwealth Fund and The Kaiser Family Foundation asked primary care providers about their thoughts and attitudes toward changes in healthcare delivery and payment. The survey collected responses from 1,624 physicians and 525 nurse practitioners/physician assistants.
Fifty percent of physicians and 64 percent of NPs/PAs said the increased use of health IT is having a positive impact on PCPs’ ability to provide quality care to patients. Conversely, 28 percent of physicians and 20 percent of NPs/PAs said IT is having a negative impact.
The positive feelings weren’t as strong for ACOs and PCMHs.
Just 14 percent of physicians and 17 percent of NPs/PAs said the increased use of ACOs is having a positive impact on ability to provide quality care. However, the numbers differ for physicians in ACOs and those not participating in ACOs — 30 percent of those in ACOs say they have a positive impact, and 7 percent of those not in ACOs say the same.
Similarly, 33 percent of physicians and 40 percent of NPs/PAs said PCMHs are having a positive impact on care quality, again with higher rates of agreement with that statement for those participating in PCMHs.
Study authors concluded PCPs’ views of new healthcare models tend to be more negative than positive, with the exception of health IT. “With regard to HIT, our study indicates that primary care providers generally accept the promise of HIT to improve quality of care even if previous research shows they dislike the process of transitioning from paper-based records,” the authors conclude.
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