Status Report: EHR Adoption Improves with Incentives

As of 2010, only about 15% of U.S. hospitals had implemented an electronic health record (EHR) system, but this percentage jumped to 26.6% in 2011, according to a study published online in the April 2012 issue of Health Affairs. The researchers, in light of the imminent finalization of stage 2 meaningful use criteria by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, examined data from the American Hospital Association survey of health technology adoption from 2008 through 2011. This survey examined participating facilities’ use of 12 functions, which researchers used as a substitute for meaningful use requirements: computerized patient demographic records, lists of problems and medications, vital signs, smoking status, allergies, computerized provider medication order entry, clinical decision support, drug allergy and interaction alerts, and automatic creation of quality metrics and discharge summaries (including health information). The researchers found that respondents were more likely to be large or teaching hospitals located either in the Midwest or Northeast.