For US hospitals, a mixed report in EHR adoption

For the past four years, US hospitals participating in the Electronic Health Records (EHRs) Incentive Program through Medicare and Medicaid have been eligible for financial incentives if they met meaningful-use criteria. This year, however, hospitals participating in the Medicare portion of the program could face financial penalties for not meeting meaningful-use requirements. According to a new study by Julia Adler-Milstein, Catherine M. DesRoches, Peter Kralovec, Gregory Foster, Chantal Worzala, Dustin Charles, Talisha Searcy, and Ashish K. Jha, being released by Health Affairs as a Web First, this "carrot and stick" approach has worked. Using 2008–14 nationwide data on EHR adoption trends, the authors found that by 2014, 75 percent of US hospitals had adopted at least a basic EHR system—up from 59 percent in 2013.