title: Do family physicians electronic health records support meaningful use?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Spurred by government incentives, the use of electronic health records (EHRs) in the United States has increased; however, whether these EHRs have the functionality necessary to meet meaningful use (MU) criteria remains unknown. Our objective was to characterize family physician access to MU functionality when using a MU-certified EHR.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data were obtained from a convenience survey of family physicians accessing their American Board of Family Medicine online portfolio in 2011. A brief survey queried MU functionality. We used descriptive statistics to characterize the responses and bivariate statistics to test associations between MU and patient communication functions by presence of a MU-certified EHR.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Out of 3855 respondents, 60% reported having an EHR that supports MU. Physicians with MU-certified EHRs were more likely than physicians without MU-certified EHRs to report patient registry activities (49.7% vs. 32.3%, p-value<0.01), tracking quality measures (74.1% vs. 56.4%, p-value<0.01), access to labs or consultation notes, and electronic prescribing; but electronic communication abilities were low regardless of EHR capabilities.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Family physicians with MU-certified EHRs are more likely to report MU functionality; however, a sizeable minority does not report MU functions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Many family physicians with MU-certified EHRs may not successfully meet the successively stringent MU criteria and may face significant upgrade costs to do so.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross sectional survey.
authors.affiliation: The American Board of Family Medicine, Lexington, KY, USA; Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA. Electronic address: lpeterson@theabfm.org.
authors.forename: Lars E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Peterson
authors.affiliation: The American Board of Family Medicine, Lexington, KY, USA.
authors.forename: Brenna
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Blackburn
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, University of Oklahoma-Tulsa, Tulsa, OK, USA.
authors.forename: Douglas
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ivins
authors.affiliation: Cerner Corporation, Kansas City, KS, USA.
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Matson
authors.affiliation: The American Board of Family Medicine, Lexington, KY, USA.
authors.forename: Robert L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Phillips
mesh_terms: D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D057286:Electronic Health Records; D006801:Humans; D062527:Meaningful Use; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D010820:Physicians; D010821:Physicians, Family; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States
keywords: Electronic health records; Family physicians; Meaningful use