Docs and IT use

A 2004 study by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital, published in the November edition of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, finds that physicians haven't yet integrated even some of the basic IT tools into their patient care. From the article:

"We are investing tens of billions of dollars in health information technology [IT] nationally, yet the medical profession has been very slow to adopt these tools for clinical care," says Richard Grant, MD, MPH, of the MGH Division of General Medicine, the paper's lead author. "We were shocked at the very low rate of basic IT use, particularly among solo-practice and non-academic physicians. I'm sure that the vast majority of them personally use e-mail and the Internet, but most do not have effective ways to integrate these tools into clinical practice."

Sounds like a good needs assessment to me.