The survey conducted by Health Tech Review polled IT managers, administrative managers, executives and physicians representing all types of health organizations.

The results indicate the major ongoing trends health care pros expect to be grappling with continue to be the use of electronic health records (EHRs). A close second is adoption of tablets in the workplace.

To see the full results of the survey, click here.

The study, SailPoint Market Pulse Survey, found that 80% were concerned about moving their personal medical information to an electronic form. As for the types of breaches they’re most concerned about:

• 35% cited identity theft
• 29% said exposure of their personal information online
• 10% named having their personal information seen by people who aren’t directly related to their care, and
• 5% were worried about having an employer learn about their health condition.

The latest research shows 70% of hospitals expect to meet the first stage meaningful use requirements set out by federal guidelines. But 78% still expect to keep using paper records for as long as another five years.

That’s the takeway from a recent survey by Iron Mountain. The survey asked 200 health information professionals about their use of, and plans for, paper patient records. Other findings of the survey are:

• 49% of hospitals say they’ve scanned what they need within their budget, while 23% report they’re within budget but still have a backlog of records to scan
• 54% are scanning records at on-site records rooms, while 29% use a centralized scanning location
• 72% rely on full-time employees to scan compared to just 9% who outsource to third parties and 6% who use part-time staff
• 44% of hospitals aren’t explicitly measuring the effectiveness or productivity of their scanning process;
• 58% will shred their paper records after scanning is finished, while 38% plan to store the paper in their on-site records room or in an off-site facility.

Researchers at Stanford University crunched data from a huge FDA side effects database, looking for evidence of diabetes-related drug interactions. They found that two drugs commonly used to treat depression and high cholesterol appear to make a dangerous combination.

According to the report, taking Paxil (paroxetine) and Pravachol (pravastin) can dangerously increase some patients’ blood sugar, sending borderline patients into a diabetic state or making existing cases of the disease harder to control. Researchers estimate more than 700,000 people take both drugs.

The finding was completely unexpected. The researchers said it showed the value of having access to large numbers of electronic health records so they can essentially study large populations in real time.

The study was published in Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics.

A recent survey of physician practices found that 41% of office-based physicians plan to achieve meaningful use of EHRs and apply for incentive payments. Most of those — about a third of all office-based physicians — plan to apply for incentives this year.

That’s according to research by the National Center for Health Statistics.

A similar survey by the American Hospital Association found that 81% of acute care non-federal hospitals expect to achieve meaningful use of EHRs and apply for incentive payments — two-thirds of hospitals plan to enroll during the first stage of the incentive programs.

A few privacy advocates had warned that the Obama administration’s move to expand EHRs, combined with operations like Wikileaks that seek to expose information, could lead to disaster.

Of course, there seems to be little reason for an outsider to release the news that Aunt Hilda is being treated for gout and that her diabetes is in check — and if they did release that information, it’s unclear why any media outlet would actually run with it.

But the hypothetical threat does exist — and if individual patient records were released, it would be a black eye for the health care organization that was meant to safeguard the information.

Do you think EHRs are secure enough? Share your thoughts in the comments.

One reason: 65% of doctors don’t have e-mail access to patients to begin with.

That’s one of the takeaways from the recent survey conducted by the Center for Studying Health System Change.

Many in the health care field thought that as electronic health records (EHRs) became more common, use of e-mail as a way to communicate with patients would grow as well. That hasn’t really been the case: Doctors using EHRs are more likely to use e-mail — but the increase hasn’t nearly kept pace with the usage of EHRs.

The researchers believe the lack of reimbursement for e-mail consultations with patients is a big barrier for most physicians. Doctors most likely to use e-mail were part of a large group practices or HMOs and those working in medical school-owned offices, clinics or hospital staffs. Solo practitioners were least likely to communicate with patients via e-mail.

A recent audit of EHRs by researchers from the University of Washington Medical School in Seattle turned up several disturbing findings.

Overuse of three common shortcuts was creating incorrect or misleading patient records and putting patients at risk for improper care. The shortcuts were:

1. Cloning — Physicians can copy/paste information such as prior medical history, demographic info, etc., from previous visits (or even other patients’ records) and paste it into the current record to save time.
2. Templates — Templates are designed to prompt documentation, but some practices have theirs set up to essentially pre-fill information, which the physician updates as necessary. (Example: Organ system reviews are automatically filled in as “negative,” and the physician is expected to check a box to switch the answer to “positive” based on patient answers.)
3. Macros — Used by teaching physicians, macros let users customize a large amount of data quickly. For example, typing “.liv” to indicate a liver exam would then bring up a drop-down menu of other relevant information the physician can choose to create a more detailed record.

It’s easy to see how these elements save time and help physicians create uniform patient records. But they can lead to problems when doctors become too reliant on the short-cuts, or miss data that needs to be updated.

In the audit, researchers found some glaring errors that were attributable to short-cuts. For example: One record dated April 25, said a patient would be given a holter heart monitor evaluation until May 12. A record for the same patient in September contained the same note — without any update as to the status of the evaluation or what the results were of the presumably completed test.

In another case, a patient record template indicated abdominal pain of an 8 on a 1-10 scale. The physician notes for the same visit indicate no pain and an benign exam. Most likely, the doctor failed to update the template from a prior visit.

That’s the news according to a recent Epocrates survey. Unlike many of their already-practicing peers, the students overwhelmingly said the main driver for EHRs will be the benefits experienced by individual practices, not government incentives.

The students may be more kindly disposed toward EHRs because of their experiences with them to date: More than half of the students said they were satisfied with the EHR training their schools provided.

A new study by researchers at Arizona State University looked at patient data from the 2006 National Hospital Amublatroy Medical Care Survey.

The research showed that hospitals using advanced EHRs (such as online access to test results, etc.) saw a number of benefits, including:

• treatment times that were 13% shorter
• admitted patients had hospital stays that were 24% shorter, and
• patients who were treated and discharged spent 21% less time in the ER.

Interestingly, simply using basic EHRs wasn’t enough to improve speed. Hospitals without EHRs actually outperformed those with basic EHRs — especially among patients that arrived at the ER with urgent medical problems.