Health IT Adoption Trending Up
Yesterday Health Affairs hosted a briefing to report on the latest trends in health IT adoption among US health care providers and hospitals. The trends were cited from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) annual health IT report, Health Information Technology in the United States: Driving Toward Delivery System Change, 2013. Â The report was done in collaboration with Harvard School of Public Health, Mathematica Policy Research. Along with the report, Health Affairs published three new Web Frist articles discussing these health IT trends. These articles and their authors also participated in the briefing. Â There was a good Twitter feed of people at the briefing yesterday at hashtag #HA_HealthIT. Health Affairs also tweeted throughout the event @HA_Events.
Web First Articles
Operational Health Information Exchanges Show Substantial Growth, But Long-Term Funding Remains A Concern, by Julia Adler-Milstein of the University of Michigan, David W. Bates, and Ashish K. Jha. – This article focuses on collected information on the exchange of clinical data between unaffiliated organizations in late 2012.
Adoption Of Electronic Health Records Grows Rapidly, But Fewer Than Half Of US Hospitals Had At Least A Basic System In 2012, by Catherine M. DesRoches of Mathematica Policy Research, Dustin Charles, Michael F. Furukawa, Maulik S. Joshi, Peter Kralovec, Farzad Mostashari, Chantal Worzala, and Ashish K. Jha. – This article focuses  on the current use of EHR systems in US hospitals.
Office-Based Physicians Are Responding To Incentives And Assistance By Adopting And Using Electronic Health Records, by Chun-Ju Hsiao of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics , Ashish K. Jha, Jennifer King, Vaishali Patel, Michael F. Furukawa, and Farzad Mostashari. – Called the biggest success story this article focuses on the increase of 25% to 40% of phsyicians using at least a basic EHR system.
Dr. Ashish Jha
Of note Dr. Ashish Jha, Professor of Health Policy and Management at Harvard School of Public Health spoke at the briefing and was a contributing author to all three of the published articles. Dr. Jha spoke to us on MU Live! and to Dr. Nick on Voice of the Doctor at www.HealthcareNOWradio.com. You can download the podcasts of those shows. Download Voice of the Doctor and hear Dr. Nick discuss why EHRs alone don’t equal better outcomes with Dr. Jha. Download MU Live! to hear Dr. Jha discuss oversight of the EHR Incentive Program, where CMS has gotten it right and where they got it wrong.