Three Quarters Of Hospitals Had EHRs Last Year

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

The ONC’s latest report says 75 percent of hospitals had EHR systems in 2014.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has proudly announced a “significant” increase in EHR adoption from 2008 to 2014. According to an ONC news brief, a recent survey of acute care providers revealed 75 percent of hospitals had a basic EHR systemin 2014. Fierce Health IT further reports this is a huge difference from 2013 when only 27 percent of hospitals could say the same.

Ninety-seven percent of hospitals in 2014 had certified EHR technology, 35 percent more than in2011. The report also shows in every state at least half of hospitals had adopted a basic EHR.

According to iHealth Beat, states with the highest adoption rates of basic EHR systems are:

● Delaware, with 100 percent of hospitals

● South Dakota, with 95.1 percent of hospitals

● Virginia, with 93.2 percent of hospitals

Those with the lowest adoption rates included:

● West Virginia, with 49.6 percent of hospitals

● Hawaii, with 54.8 percent of hospitals

● Kansas, with 60 percent of hospitals

“HHS recently launched efforts to address the barrier of competition, shifting care reimbursement from fee-for-service to value-based care,” wrote the ONC in a blog post. “Key to making care better, smarter, and healthier is to accelerate the availability of health information to guide decision making.”

“While these survey results are promising, there is plenty of room for progress,” said the Health IT Buzz blog. “These results capture exchange activity among hospitals; however, these results do not assess exchange volume, whether the exchange is interoperable, and if information is available to providers at the point of care.”