October 11, 2006 -- A Status Report on Electronic Health Records

The most comprehensive study to date of the extent to which doctors and hospitals are using electronic health records (EHRs) has found that only one in four doctors use EHRs to improve how they deliver care to patients, and fewer than one in ten use what experts define as a fully operational system, meaning a system that collects patient information, displays test results, allows providers to enter medical orders and prescriptions, and helps doctors make treatment decisions. The study released today, “Health Information Technologies in the United States: The Information Base for Progress” finds technology adoption rates low because of multiple financial, technical, and legal barriers. “We are pitifully behind where we should be,” said study co-author Dr. David Blumenthal. “We must find ways to get more physicians to embrace this technology if we are to make major strides in improving health care quality.” The full text of the report, a joint project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the federal government's National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, is available online at www.rwjf.org. A companion article highlighting key findings of the report is published in the October 1 web edition of the journal Health Affairs at http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.25.w496.