EHR Adoption Moving Quicker Than Originally Estimated

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Family physician adoption has doubled since 2005, could reach 80%by the end of 2013

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, when passed in 2009, would result in approximately 90% of doctors and 70% of hospitals using comprehensive electronic health records by 2019. Four years in and the healthcare industry appears to be well ahead of the CBO’s timetable.

Healthcare IT News writes that “EHR adoption by family physicians has doubled since 2005, with researchers estimating that the adoption rate will exceed 80% by the end of 2013.” As recently as July 2012 the CDC’s Center for National Health Statistics reported just over half of office-based physicians had adopted EHRs.

Transformative Health, referring to 2012 as a “banner year for EHR usage adoption” for hospitals, points out this Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) study indicating “16 of the 24 ‘meaningful use’ objectives studied had an adoption rate of at least 80%” and “each of the 14 meaningful use Stage 1 Core objectives had adoption rate ranges of 72% to 94%.” Transformative Health concludes that the ONC study “further underscores the value of EHRs and how U.S. hospitals are moving in the right direction when it comes to technology adoption and usage.”

The Annals of Family Medicine, which published the study from which much of this information is obtained, also noted that EHR adoption by family physicians varies wildly from state to state and among different types of physicians. The report indicates adoption rates for “family physicians were significantly higher than for other offi ce-based physicians” and rates ranged “from a low of 47.1% in North Dakota to a high of 94.9% in Utah.”