Adoption of EHR Likely to be Very High

So a recent survey from the CDC: NCHS Health E-Stat “Electronic Medical Record/Electronic Health Record Systems of Office-based Physicians: United States, 2009 and Preliminary 2010 State Estimates” (pdf version here) and reported on the US Department of Health and Human Services website HHS.gov “Surveys show significant proportions of hospitals and doctors already plan to adopt electronic health records and qualify for federal incentive payments” suggests that

• 80% of hospitals , AND
• 41% of Office based physicians

are intending to take advantage of the federal incentive payments for adoption and meaningful use of certified EHR’s
And Dr David Blumenthal posted a video comment on the registration for EHR Incentive programs

This is substantially higher than a recent set of stats that had the rates posted much lower. This is good news all round if the incentive program has stimulated that much interest and desire to move towards the digitization of the medical record which for Stage 7 has barely reached double digits according to the most recent HIMSS Analytics assessment of EHR implementations.

For those wanting more information
Information about the incentive payments program is available on the CMS website and the Regional Extension Centers (RECs) technical assistance is available at the HealthIT web site. So for those still pondering if this is worthwhile investment it seems that healthcare systems and your clinical peers see this as a valuable and positive move. Do you want to watch the train leave the station or be on it?