EHR Adoptions Still a Major Concern for Physician Practices

It is frustrating to see that EHR still remains a major concern for physicians practices in 2009. It is clear that form the backbone of our healthcare system, yet we can't as a country/government/etc. seem to focus on how to truly help these practices adopt EHR's. The large hospital systems are continually adopting more and more health technology, creating an even greater separation between the physicians offices and the hospitals. The physician offices are our primary care locations, so it would seem logical to focus our efforts on digitizing the records for these practices. However, the country's focus does not seem to align with this thinking, or rather the funding is not well enough focused to help support these practices adopt the EHR's. With large hospital systems adopting proprietary EHR's, the pressure for physician practices to do the same is great. However, it would seem an even better fit to simply advocate open source systems initially for all physician practices, so they won't be overwhelmed with the adoption because of the financial tab. Then they can all at least be up and running with digitized records, so they can benefit from the information exchange with large hospitals.