Although the number of U.S. hospitals with either basic or comprehensive electronic health records increased by 3.2 percentage points in 2009, only 2% of those hospitals have EHRs that would meet the federal government's "meaningful use" criteria, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Health Affairs, AHA News reports.
Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers and hospitals that demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHRs will qualify for incentive payments through Medicaid and Medicare.
Study Details
For the study, researchers analyzed data from the American Hospital Association's Annual Survey Health IT Supplement (AHA News, 8/26).
The research team included Ashish Jha, associate professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Catherine DesRoches, a survey scientist at the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Partners HealthCare in Boston (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 8/26).
Obstacles to Adopting EHRs
According to Jha, cost is one of the biggest obstacles preventing hospitals from adopting EHRs. He added that implementing an EHR system could cost between $5 million and $10 million for small- to medium-sized hospitals, while large hospitals might need to pay about $100 million.
Jha said that federal incentive payments might not be enough to encourage hospitals to adopt EHRs because of the strict meaningful use criteria and high implementation costs.
He added that the transition to an EHR system also could disrupt the daily functions of a health care facility (Perna, International Business Times, 8/26).
Conclusions
The study authors wrote that the "transition to a digital health care system is likely to be a long one" (Modern Healthcare, 8/26).
They also noted that small, rural and critical access hospitals generally were less likely to meet specific meaningful use criteria than their urban counterparts. The authors wrote, "Policymakers need to consider ways to make it easier for hospitals to adopt electronic health records and meet the criteria for their meaningful use -- especially in the case of smaller, rural and public hospitals" (AHA News, 8/26).