Hospitals Slow To Adopt Electronic Medical Records

Hospitals Slow To Adopt Electronic Medical Records in General Healthcare

As we’ve blogged about before, doctors have been mighty slow in making the switch to electronic medical records even though health care experts and lawmakers have been near unanimous on its potential for improving health care quality and reducing costs.

Hospitals are also slow to adopt an electronic records system, found a report in the New England Journal of Medicine, reported the Associated Press and the Austin American-Statesman.

The survey conducted by the NEJM found fewer than 2 percent of U.S. hospitals has fully implemented electronic records, and only 8 to 11 percent have basic electronic systems.

Most point to cost as the biggest deterrent for making the switch — it costs thousands of dollars to move to electronic medical records.

But this AP/Statesman article also brought up a good point: What should be the standard software for electronic records?

For electronic records to actually be effective in improving communication, the systems of health care providers and health insurance companies need to be able to talk with one another and send data in compatible formats.

The Obama Administration, like the previous Bush Administration, made a goal to get all health care providers to switch — they’ve even allocated $19 billion to help in the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009.

But we’re not sure whether or not they’ve come up with a standard procedure for all of this.

Maybe it’s a good thing health care providers are slow to move.

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