Study points to growing gap in rates of EHR adoption | EHR Watch

A study recently published in Health Affairs indicates that many hospitals are steadily toward the comprehensive use of EHRs.

But it also reveals that small, rural, and nonteaching hospitals are lagging behind their better positioned peers.

After pointing out that data is still not available to determine if, and by how much, the HITECH Act has accelerated the move to EHRs, the study’s authors turn to their assessment of data received from the American Hospital Association's annual survey of health information technology adoption from the period 2008–11. The data includes survey responses from over 2,600 acute care hospitals, or 58 percent of all acute care hospitals in the United States. And, on one level, the results are encouraging.


For example, researchers “found a substantial increase in the proportion of hospitals with either a basic or comprehensive EHR system between 2010 and 2011. In 2010, 3.6 percent of hospitals had a comprehensive system. By 2011 that number more than doubled, to 8.7 percent. Eighteen percent of hospitals had a basic system in 2011—an increase from 11.5 percent in 2010. Therefore, between 2010 and 2011 the proportion of hospitals with at least a basic EHR system increased from 15.1 percent to 26.6 percent.”

At the same time, the results also show that “during the past four years, the gap in rates of adoption of at least a basic EHR system increased substantially based on hospital size, teaching status, and location. There was a fifteen-percentage-point gap in system adoptions between large and small hospitals in 2010 (25.7 percent compared to 10.7 percent, respectively)—a gap that widened to 22.2 percentage points in 2011 (20.8 percent compared to 43.0 percent, respectively). Similar divergences based on hospitals’ teaching status and urban locations were also found.”

As to what the policy implications of the survey are, the authors suggest, among other things, that given the fact that policymakers have turned their attention to MU Stage 2, “it will be critically important . . . to take into account that more than 80 percent of hospitals could not meet stage 1 criteria in 2011.”

They also suggest that policymakers may want to consider implementing programs aimed at ensuring that the current gap in implementation doesn’t grow any wider.


Study points to growing gap in rates of EHR adoption | EHR Watch