Majorities of respondents also thought digitally sharing information could help slash health care costs and improve quality and public health reporting.

Communication problems


Still, communication problems led the list of "major barriers" that prevent providers from electronically sharing health information, dwarfing even such highly publicized concerns as data security.

Nearly 71 percent of respondents said EHRs' inability to communicate electronically with other systems and the lack of information exchange infrastructure were major barriers to data sharing. About nine out of 10 respondents thought interoperability problems were a major or a minor barrier, according to the data.

"Now, any time you get 71 (percent) of physicians to agree on anything, is a minor miracle," Dr. Doug Gentile, the chief medical officer of Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, an HIT vendor, said during a panel talk about the survey results.

The expense of setting up and maintaining an exchange followed close on the heels of interoperability problems, with 69 percent of respondents saying it was a significant hurdle. Concerns about security, however, were held to be a major barrier by only a quarter of respondents.

Sharing is caring

What sort of information would doctors want shared?

One section of the survey asked doctors to image three scenarios: where a patient is discharged from a hospital, referred to them by another physician, or is referred by them to another doctor. It then asked what sorts of information they'd most like to see pass along at these moments of transition.

Across all three scenarios, three categories emerged as the most important for sharing: lists of medication currently being taken, relevant lab results and relevant radiology or imaging scans. In all three cases, these three information types averaged a score above four on a five-point scale, with five being the most important.

As for how they want their information shared, a majority, 55 percent, said they wanted "essential" patient information "pushed" to them, such as through a secure e-mail system, with the rest of the information accessible with a look-up or query function. Only 20 percent said they wanted all the information "pushed" to them, and only 10 percent said they wanted nothing "pushed" to them, just an alert, with all the information then queried as needed.

And how fast do they want this information? According to the survey, 80 percent of respondents thought urgent requests should be received within 24 hours or immediately, while 70 percent said non-urgent ones could be received in three business days or less.

The survey, sent electronically and in newsletters, went out over the summer, from June through August, and then in early September. There were 527 valid responses.

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