Table 4

Barriers to the use of electronic health records among child health providers in Florida

General Pediatricians

Family Physicians*

Pediatric Sub-specialists

P-value¹

Financial barriers

• Upfront cost of hardware/software are too high

60.4%

55.3%

38.6%

<.001

• Ongoing maintenance costs would be too high

42.1%

36.9%

25.9%

<.001

• Inadequate Return on Investment (ROI)

40.3%

31.4%

28.2%

<.001

Productivity barriers

• Entering data into computer can be cumbersome

47.0%

38.7%

31.7%

<.001

• Lack of time to acquire, implement such a system

42.6%

37.2%

31.3%

<.001

• EHR may slow me down

34.5%

34.1%

17.8%

<.001

• Temporary loss of productivity and/or revenue during EHR system implementation phase

30.8%

30.6%

16.3%

<.001

• Disrupts workflow and/or office's physical layout to accommodate going to a computerized system

28.8%

21.3%

13.2%

<.001

• No time to learn how to use such a system

21.0%

17.1%

13.6%

<.001

• The system would be difficult to use

18.5%

15.8%

7.9%

<.001

Technical barriers

• Lack of uniform data standards within the industry

42.5%

32.0%

32.4%

<.001

• Temporary loss of access to patient records if computer crashes or power fails

41.0%

30.3%

26.3%

<.001

• Products available do not meet my needs

25.7%

19.8%

24.4%

0.045

• Me and/or my staff don't have any technical knowledge

13.5%

9.8%

10.0%

0.001

Patients barriers

• Privacy/confidentiality concerns (i.e., electronic records not secure)

19.0%

18.9%

18.4%

0.004

• Patient resistance or not wanting their physicians to use EHR

4.9%

4.2%

6.5%

0.006

Note: Value in cells represents the percentage of respondents who indicated each item was a major barrier to the adoption of electronic health records.

*Family physicians with at least 20% children (<18 years of age) in their practice.

¹Chi square test used to identify differences among groups

Menachemi et al. BMC Pediatrics 2006 6:21   doi:10.1186/1471-2431-6-21