Winter 2022

By the Numbers
For The Record
Vol. 34 No. 1 P. 34

675
According to the Los Angeles Times, screenshots of Scripps Memorial Hospital’s EHR system show price hikes ranging from 575% to this percentage being automatically generated by the hospital’s software. For example, the system said the basic “cost per unit” for sutures was $19.30 but said the “computed charge per unit” (the amount the patient and their insurer would be billed) was $149.58.

2.54
According to a study in Health Affairs, Black patients were this times more likely to have at least one negative descriptor in their EHR notes compared to White patients.

$1.5 Million
Physician Network Advantage, which specializes in Epic EHR rollouts, sued Santé Health Systems for allegedly failing to pay this amount for an EHR deployment after entering into a contract in 2013. This amount includes an initial fee of more than $1 million for the EHR deployment as well as $534,410 for several years of maintenance and support services, reports Becker’s.

99
According to Epic, more than this percentage of the EHR company's employees met its October 1, 2021, deadline for being fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with less than 0.5% of Epic's 9,600 Verona, Wisconsin–based workers choosing to leave the company rather than get the vaccine.

2,753
Lincoln, Nebraska–based Bryan Health notified this number of patients of a data breach after a now-former employee accessed patients' demographic and clinical information without a job-related reason, reports Becker's.

80
At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the spring of 2020, 21% of US physicians reported having used virtual consults to treat patients in the previous three months—up from single digits in 2019. By summer 2020, that figure had climbed to this percentage, decreasing slightly to 65% by spring 2021, according to a study by Clarivate.

36.4
Black Americans are disproportionately impacted by the “digital divide,” according to a study by Clarivate. This percentage of Black households do not have a computer or broadband access. Both availability and affordability can be challenges; 1 in 5 Black Americans (19.5%) are living below the poverty line.

13,000
Huntington Hospital, part of New York–based Northwell Health, announced that it notified about this number of patients that their protected health information was improperly accessed by a former night-shift employee, who is being charged with a criminal HIPAA violation as a result of the investigation.