Southern Inyo Hospital is a 37-bed facility in Lone Pine, Calif. -- a frontier location as rural as rural gets, with a population of just more than 2,000. Built in 1949, the hospital had 10 computers just a year and a half ago but now has 50. The hospital's culture and, more importantly, its budget aren't primed for electronic health record adoption. Most of Southern Inyo's budget goes to building and equipment upkeep. Yet the deadline for Meaningful Use Stage 2 looms in 2014, raising expectations for online data exchange and patient engagement in addition to routine use of EHRs.
