If health IT were fully implemented in 30% of community-based physicians' offices, the gains in efficiency would reduce demand for physicians by 4% to 9%, according to a new study in Health Affairs. Using health IT to support the delegation of work from physicians to midlevel practitioners and from specialists to primary care doctors could reduce demand for physicians by 6% to 12%. And increasing the amount of IT-enabled remote care and asynchronous care could cut the percentage of overall care that physicians provide by 2% to 5% and 4% to 7%, respectively, the study found.
