Just like any other industry, the healthcare field seems to be exhibiting a generational gap between its older and younger members. As coding initiatives like Meaningful Use Stage 2 and ICD-10 push chiropractic EHR further to the forefront of a practice's needs, it's the younger, more tech-savvy physicians and clinic staffers that, by and large, are able to pick up quicker on how to best use these new systems.

As providers move toward increasingly digital means of treating patients, storing medical records and submitting claims requests to payers, this generational gap could potentially have negative effects on how well older doctors are able to keep up with the logistical needs of their offices and balance that with the rapidly changing landscape of patient care.

But could EHR also provide a solution to this problem too? Dr. Jeffrey Steinbauer, the Chief Medical Informatics Officer (CMIO) of Baylor College of Medicine spoke with EHR Intelligence on this matter, noting that chiropractic EHR may actually help bridge the generational gap.

"Our ability to find ways to share information with people we have never met or people we don't know [through] other than online may enhance [patient] care in the future," Dr. Steinbauer tells the source. "In some ways, maybe the electronic record and how we share that information will take on more of a social media-type look and feel so that physicians can communicate with each other informally as well as formally."

Of course, proper EHR adoption and use isn't just a productivity switch that can be turned on and off. It requires the right chiropractic EHR software, along with a thorough training program, to ensure that physicians — both old and young — can properly use digital health records to their practice's and patients' advantage.