Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)
Health IT (HIT) Adoption Initiative
Overview
President Bush has called for the widespread use of electronic health records (EHRs) within ten years starting in 2004. Among the benefits stemming from the use of EHRs are improved quality of care and greater efficiency. Despite the demonstrated improvements in care delivery, studies have found widespread use remains low among physicians, hospitals and other health care providers.
Today however, there exists no single approach for measuring the percentage of health care providers using EHRs. A handful of studies have attempted to measure the EHR and health IT adoption rates among health care providers. Studies have varied by methodology and the type and size of provider studied making a true measurement rate difficult to establish.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will partner with the George Washington University & Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Institute for Health Policy through a contract on the Health IT (HIT) Adoption Initiative.
The new initiative is aimed at better characterizing and measuring the state of EHR adoption and determining the effectiveness of policies aimed at accelerating adoption of EHRs and interoperability.
The key components of the HIT Adoption Initiative include:
- Convening an expert consensus panel;
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Conducting an environmental scan of the current state of EHR adoption
measurement and making publicly available the gaps in adoption measurement
data and the currently known gaps in actual adoption;
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Developing consensus-panel-driven guidelines for EHR adoption measurement
and making these guidelines publicly available;
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Designing a set of EHR adoption surveys that use the guidelines to measure
adoption in multiple settings of care across diverse populations; and
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Synthesizing multiple EHR adoption measurements into an Annual Report on the
overall state of EHR adoption.
An Annual Report will synthesize multiple surveys using the methodologies developed
under the HIT Adoption Initiative. The first of five Annual Reports will be published in
the fall of 2006. The Annual Reports are expected to serve as a long-term indicator of
progress toward meeting the President�s goal for widespread adoption of interoperable
EHRs within ten years as well as progress on the associated policy drivers and barriers
for achieving this goal.
The first report will focus on EHR adoption in multi-physician offices, single-physician
practices, and hospitals. The first report, and subsequent reports, will also characterize the
EHR adoption gap so that it can be followed over time.
HHS awarded this contract as part of a larger suite of activities designed to spur
greater health IT adoption and interoperability. On October 6, 2005 HHS, established
three partnerships through contracts with private, non-profit entities to address EHR
certification, interoperability standards, and address variations in privacy and security
practices (see: http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2005pres/20051006a.html).
Please click here to access the site of the Health Information Technology Adoption Initiative.
The HIT Adoption Initiative is providing not only a baseline measurement on EHR
adoption rates but also a quantifiable method for measuring the increased uptake as we
move closer to achieving widespread interoperable EHR adoption.
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