Certified EHR adoption ‘almost universal’ in acute care hospitals

The recent data on EHR adoption indicates almost all non-federal acute care hospitals are utilizing the certified EHR technology. In accordance to the National Coordinator for Health IT, 96% of hospitals had this technology as of the year 2015, which it deems as “almost universal.”

Here are 3 more statistics on the adoption of EHR.

1. The 2015 amounts of certified adoption of EHR are similar to those of the year 2014, demonstrating the adoption of this technology has hit a plateau. Although, basic EHR adoption, which refers to EHRs with a minimum utilization of 10 functionalities considered being essential to an EHR system, increased from 75.5% in the year 2014 to 83.8% in the year 2015, an 11% increase.
2. Small, rural and critical access hospitals yet have lower amounts of EHR adoption than all hospitals. In the year 2015, 84% of all hospitals reported adopting at least a basic EHR, compared to 81% of small hospitals, 80% of rural hospitals and 80% of critical access hospitals.
3. Moreover, psychiatric and children’s hospitals have primarily lower basic EHR adoption rates than general medicine hospitals, at 15% and 55%, respectively.  However, these adoption rates have increased: In the year 2008, just 7% of psychiatric hospitals and 10% of children’s hospitals had adopted a basic EHR.