Adoption of Electronic Health Records Grows Rapidly, But Fewer Than Half of US Hospitals had at Least a Basic System in 2012.

This article measured current hospital use of electronic health record (EHR) systems using data from the 2012 health IT supplement to the American Hospital Association’s annual survey. According to the data, 44 percent of hospitals report having at least a basic EHR system, a 17 percent increase from 2011 and a near-tripling of the 2010 adoption rate. Also, large urban hospitals continued to outpace rural and nonteaching hospitals. Although 42.2 percent of all hospitals met all the stage 1 meaningful-use criteria, only 5.1 percent had advanced to stage 2. While considerable progress has been made, findings suggest a need for a focus on hospitals still trailing behind, notably small and rural institutions. This focus is especially important as stage 2 meaningful-use criteria become the rule, and positive incentives are replaced by penalties for noncompliance.