Doctors favor patient-centered care but haven't adopted it fully

A study reaching that conclusion comes as some physician organizations are trying to help practices redesign how they provide care.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. May 15, 2006.

Physicians are pretty good at providing same-day appointments for patients who want them. And they usually receive timely test results of patients they referred to another doctor.

They don't do as well at routinely using electronic medical records or communicating with patients via e-mail.

Those conclusions are based on what 1,837 physicians, in practice at least three years, told researchers. The nationwide survey led the authors of a new study in the April 10 Archives of Internal Medicine to find that physicians favor such patient-centered care practices, but few practice all of them.

Physicians were asked about 11 patient-centered practices, such as same-day appointments, e-mail with patients, reminder notices for preventive or follow-up care, electronic medical records and patient survey feedback.

The study said that about one in four doctors uses electronic medical records and about half send reminder notices to patients about preventive or follow-up care.

Three in four primary care physicians had problems with the availability of patients records, test results or other information at the time of a scheduled visit.

But researchers found that doctors favor many elements of patient-centered care. The study said 87% of primary care physicians support improved teamwork among health care professionals while 85% of all surveyed physicians favor easy access to patients of medical records.

"They have the right attitude. They thought a team approach to care was a good thing, and they're planning to look into electronic medical records," said lead study author Anne-Marie Audet, MD, vice president for quality improvement at the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation in New York City.