According to a survey published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, only 9 percent of US hospitals have electronic health records. The main reason for this low percentage is the big costs, which can range between $20 million and $100 million and the reluctance of doctors to change their way of working with patients.
The survey was funded by the federal government and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and excluded federal hospitals, such as those for veterans.
"The data collectively show we are at a very early stage in adoption, a very low stage compared to other countries," Harvard's Dr. David Blumenthal said.
Blumental, Dr. Ashish Jha of the Harvard School of Public Health, and others collected data in 2008 from nearly 3,000 hospitals.
Dr. Jha said “we have a long way to go. And we did not measure effective use. Even if a hospital does have electronic health records, it does not mean it is sharing information with other hospitals and doctors down the road.”
And this happens in spite of President Barack Obama push to adopt electronic records in hospitals and doctors’ offices. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the economic-stimulus package passed in February by Congress is likely to generate more than $20 billion in federal outlays for health-information technology, mostly between 2011 and 2015.
Dr. Jha in fact said that adopting electronic medical record system is not something that will happen overnight. “Even in the best-case scenario, it's going to take five to 10 years,” he said.
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