British Columbia's family doctors feel overwhelmed by the amount of patient data and increased demands placed on their practice, according to a new SAS Canada survey.
Fifty-four per cent of B.C. doctors surveyed said they won't be able to deal with the increase in demands on their practice. Most GPs (89%) said that, because of our aging population, those demands will increase in the next five years.
According to the survey, most B.C. doctors and almost half of B.C.'s health specialists are overwhelmed by the amount of patient information they deal with daily. They also said that improvements are needed in the system; 58% of GPs and 48% of specialists said patient information is mostly, but not completely, accurate.
Creating an electronic system of patient information was seen as a way to improve patient information accuracy and access, but almost two-thirds of doctors and 75% of specialists predicted this would happen before 2015. Almost a quarter of those surveyed doubted it would ever happen. Only 6% of survey respondents have their patient's information fully electronic.
Cost and difficulty of data integration were identified as the key barriers to creating a fully electronic patient information system.
Funding from this year's federal budget might help. The federal government announced plans to provide $500 million to Canada Health Infoway, a non-profit organization that provides funding to expand the use of electronic patient data across the country.