I’m always happy to look at data. Certainly data can lie, but it can also inform if you are looking at the right data and considering the biases of the data. I applaud ONC for being as transparent as possible with the EHR incentive program data. They have an entire Health IT Dashboard for analyzing the data. I think this is a great step towards accountability for how the EHR incentive money is being spent.
ONC recently announced a set of Health IT Quick Stats and even created a widget (embedded below) that lets you download a 3 page health IT and HITECH summary for your state. I think a few states are missing from the widget and why they grouped them by area I don’t know, but there’s some interesting data in the reports.
I downloaded my home state of Nevada to see how we’re doing with Health IT and HITECH. Here are a few thoughts I had when looking at EHR use in Nevada.
I was amazed that so many REC assisted providers were live with an EHR, but less than half of those had demonstrated meaningful use. We’ll see if that changes after this years attestations.
I do have to question some of the data since it shows the overall access to view lab results electronically as 0% for Nevada. Something is wrong with their data there. They did show office based EHR adoption in Nevada at 23% (39% nationally). I’m not sure how that national EHR adoption number meshes with the $60% I’ve heard thrown around. Different sources of data.
For hospital adoption of EHRs they show Nevada at 36% EHR adoption (35% nationally). It’s nice to see Nevada ahead of the national average in something.
I’ve always told people there were about 700,000 providers in America, so I was glad to see they listed 715,984 health care providers.
Lots more data in there, but those were a few of the things that stood out for me in the Nevada Health IT and EHR report. Take a look at your state and let us know what numbers stand out for your state in the comments.
[…] According to HHS, 9 percent of hospitals had EMRs in 2008, but now 80 percent have demonstrated Meaningful Use. Meanwhile, 17 percent of physicians used EMRs in 2008, but now 50 percent have demonstrated Meaningful Use. To date, more than 291,000 providers and 3,800 hospitals have received incentive payments. These are interesting numbers when compared with the state EHR adoption reports. […]
Hopefully the data reflect a timing issue that will correct itself in the future, as John said. Certainly more than 50% of those that implemented EHR expected to receive the MU incentives.
West / Pacific Providers
State Live MU MU / Live
AK 1293 155 12.0%
AZ 2141 691 32.3%
CA 9755 4251 43.6%
CO 2212 987 44.6%
HI 535 220 41.1%
ID 868 434 50.0%
MT 994 497 50.0%
UT 925 493 53.3%
NM 1050 502 47.8%
NV 535 212 39.6%
OR 3159 1312 41.5%
WA 2655 1356 51.1%
WY 292 100 34.2%