Between 2% and 12% of U.S. hospitals use electronic health record systems depending on the definition of an EHR, according to a new survey presented yesterday at the American Health Information Community meeting, Government Health IT reports.
Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Policy presented the findings of the hospital IT adoption survey, which was conducted this year in conjunction with the American Hospital Association. The survey included responses of more than 3,000 nonfederal hospitals.
The survey found that just 1.7% of hospitals had comprehensive EHR systems in place in all hospital departments. Researchers defined a comprehensive hospital EHR system as one that includes 24 functions, such as recording discharge summaries and ordering laboratory tests.
At the meeting, Ashish Jha of the Harvard School of Public Health said that the percentage of hospitals with comprehensive EHR systems would have increased to 4% if federal hospitals had been included.
According to the survey, up to 12% of hospitals had a basic EHR system in place in at least one department. In addition, as many as 78% of hospitals had certain EHR functions in place, but "they just haven't put the pieces together" to develop a comprehensive EHR, Jha said.
Hospitals cited cost as a major barrier to adoption.
Comments
Jha called the survey findings "somewhat sobering," but added, "I do think we've got a good start" on automating hospitals' health record keeping.
HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt criticized the presentation of the findings. "It belies the actual progress to simply measure those who have arrived" at the goal of comprehensive EHRs, he said (Ferris, Government Health IT, 11/12).