By Healthcare Facilities Today

A new study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said the increasing digitization of healthcare could shake up the industry in many ways, from allowing doctors to do their jobs more efficiently to reducing demand for specialists, according to an article on the Everyday Health website. But the new study is lease clear on how technological changes will effect quality of care.

The Hopkins researchers made several predictions as to how improved information technology (IT) might affect healthcare delivery, the article said. The report said if IT was fully implemented in just 30 percent of community-based physicians’ offices, it would cut demand for physician time by up to 9 percent, and if it were implemented in 70 percent of hospitals, it would reduce physician demand by up to 19 percent. 

The researchers also estimated that using IT to delegate some care from doctors to nurses or physicians' assistants, and from specialists to generalists, could reduce demand for doctors by up to 12 percent at 30 percent penetration, and up to 26 percent at 70 percent penetration, the article said.

The researchers said that properly implementing IT solutions could help relieve a possible doctor shortage that may occur due to the growth of the aging population and increased access to health care, the article quoted study author Jonathan Weiner, DrPH, professor of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School, and director of the Center for Population Health Information Technology.

While the Hopkins research focused primarily on increasing the efficiency and reach of healthcare, the authors admit that future studies must also evaluate the effectiveness of new care methods, according to the article.

“Instead, the emphasis should be on holistic population-based impacts of alternative workforce models brought about by care supported by health IT," the researchers said.

Read the article.