04-04-2011
An unprecedented federal effort is under way to boost the adoption of electronic health records and spur innovation in health care delivery. We reviewed the recent literature on health information technology to determine its effect on outcomes, including quality, efficiency, and provider satisfaction. We found that 92 percent of the recent articles on health information technology reached conclusions that were positive overall. We also found that the benefits of the technology are beginning to emerge in smaller practices and organizations, as well as in large organizations that were early adopters. However, dissatisfaction with electronic health records among some providers remains a problem and a barrier to achieving the potential of health information technology. These realities highlight the need for studies that document the challenging aspects of implementing health information technology more specifically and how these challenges might be addressed.
Health information technology (IT) has the potential to improve the health of individuals and the performance of providers, yielding improved quality, cost savings, and greater engagement by patients in their own health care.1 Despite evidence of these benefits,2 physicians’ and hospitals’ use of health IT and electronic health records is still low.3,4
To accelerate the use of health IT, in 2009 Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed into law the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. HITECH makes an estimated $14–27 billion in incentive payments available to hospitals and health professionals to adopt certified electronic health records and use them effectively in the course of care.1 The legislation also established programs within the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to guide physicians, hospitals, and other key entities as they adopt electronic health records and achieve so-called meaningful use, as spelled out in federal regulations.5
The legislation and subsequent regulations were designed to spur adoption and yield benefits from health information technology on a much broader scale than has been achieved to date. Building on that effort, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 underscored the importance of health IT in achieving goals related to health care quality and efficiency.
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