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Achieving nationwide adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) remains an important policy priority. While EHR adoption has increased steadily since 2010, it is unclear how providers that have not yet adopted will fare now that federal incentives have converted to penalties. We used 2008-14 national data, which includes the most recently available, to examine hospital EHR trends. We found large gains in adoption, with 75 percent of US hospitals now having adopted at least a basic EHR system-up from 59 percent in 2013. However, small and rural hospitals continue to lag behind. Among hospitals without a basic EHR system, the function most often not yet adopted (in 61 percent of hospitals) was physician notes. We also saw large increases in the ability to meet core stage 2 meaningful-use criteria (40.5 percent of hospitals, up from 5.8 percent in 2013); much of this progress resulted from increased ability to meet criteria related to exchange of health information with patients and with other physicians during care transitions. Finally, hospitals most often reported up-front and ongoing costs, physician cooperation, and complexity of meeting meaningful-use criteria as challenges. Our findings suggest that nationwide hospital EHR adoption is in reach but will require attention to small and rural hospitals and strategies to address financial challenges, particularly now that penalties for lack of adoption have begun.

The US health care system is in the midst of an enormous change in the way health care providers and hospitals document, monitor, and share information about health and care delivery. Part of this transition involves a wholesale, but currently uneven, shift from paper-based records to electronic health record (EHR) systems. We used the most recent longitudinal survey of US hospitals to track how they are adopting and using EHR systems. Only 44 percent of hospitals report having and using what we define as at least a basic EHR system. And although 42.2 percent meet all of the federal stage 1 \"meaningful-use\" criteria, only 5.1 percent could meet the broader set of stage 2 criteria. Large urban hospitals continue to outpace rural and nonteaching hospitals in adopting EHR systems. The increase in adoption overall suggests that the positive and negative financial incentives currently in place across the US health care system are working as intended. However, achieving a nationwide health information technology infrastructure may require efforts targeted at smaller and rural hospitals. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Given the substantial federal financial incentives soon to be available to providers who make \"meaningful use\" of electronic health records, tracking the progress of this health care technology conversion is a policy priority. Using a recent survey of U.S. hospitals, we found that the share of hospitals that had adopted either basic or comprehensive electronic records has risen modestly, from 8.7 percent in 2008 to 11.9 percent in 2009. Small, public, and rural hospitals were less likely to embrace electronic records than their larger, private, and urban counterparts. Only 2 percent of U.S. hospitals reported having electronic health records that would allow them to meet the federal government's \"meaningful use\" criteria. These findings underscore the fact that the transition to a digital health care system is likely to be a long one. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

To achieve the goal of comprehensive health information record keeping and exchange among providers and patients, hospitals must have functioning electronic health record systems that contain patient demographics, care histories, lab results, and more. Using national survey data on US hospitals from 2011, the year federal incentives for the meaningful use of electronic health records began, we found that the share of hospitals with any electronic health record system increased from 15.1 percent in 2010 to 26.6 percent in 2011, and the share with a comprehensive system rose from 3.6 percent to 8.7 percent. The proportion able to meet our proxy criteria for meaningful use also rose; in 2011, 18.4 percent of hospitals had these functions in place in at least one unit and 11.2 percent had them across all clinical units. However, gaps in rates of adoption of at least a basic record system have increased substantially over the past four years based on hospital size, teaching status, and location. Small, nonteaching, and rural hospitals continue to adopt electronic health record systems more slowly than other types of hospitals. In sum, this is mixed news for policy makers, who should redouble their efforts among hospitals that appear to be moving slowly and ensure that policies do not further widen gaps in adoption. A more robust infrastructure for information exchange needs to be developed, and possibly a special program for the sizable minority of hospitals that have almost no health information technology at all. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Hospitals must strategically build organizational capacities to succeed in bundled payment arrangements. Given differences between Medicare and commercial arrangements, capacities may vary between hospitals in Medicare vs both Medicare and commercial bundled payment programs. This study compared organizational capacities between these 2 hospital groups. National survey of American Hospital Association (AHA) member hospitals with experience in bundled payment programs. We analyzed data from October 31, 2017, to April 30, 2018, collected from AHA member hospitals with bundled payment experience in only Medicare (Medicare-only hospitals) or in both Medicare and commercial insurers (multipayer hospitals). Survey questions examined capacity in 4 areas: (1) physician performance feedback, (2) care management, (3) postacute care provider utilization, and (4) health information technology. Our sample included 114 hospitals reporting experience in Medicare or commercial bundled payment programs. Both Medicare-only and multipayer hospitals reported high organizational capacities in performance measurement of physician-level quality and cost feedback and in incorporation of health information technology. More multipayer hospitals reported high capacity for coordinating hospital to postacute care settings (88% vs 52%). Although nearly all hospitals in both groups reported formalized relationships with skilled nursing facilities (98%), fewer hospitals reported such relationships with long-term acute care hospitals (83%) and inpatient rehabilitation facilities (80%). Although they have similar capacity in a number of areas, Medicare-only and multipayer hospitals differed with respect to other aspects of organizational capacity.

The national effort to promote the adoption and meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs) is well under way. However, 2014 marks an important transition: For many hospitals, penalties will be assessed in fiscal year 2015 for failing to meet federal meaningful-use criteria by the end of fiscal year 2014. We used recent data from the American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals-IT Supplement to assess progress and challenges. EHR adoption among US hospitals continues to rise steeply: 59 percent now have at least a basic EHR. Small and rural hospitals continue to lag behind their better resourced counterparts. Most hospitals are able to meet many of the stage 2 meaningful-use criteria, but only 5.8 percent of hospitals are able to meet them all. Several criteria, including sharing care summaries with other providers and providing patients with online access to their data, will require attention from EHR vendors to ensure that the necessary functions are available and additional effort from many hospitals to make certain that these functionalities are used. Policy makers may want to consider new targeted strategies to ensure that all hospitals move toward meaningful use of EHRs.

Throughout the 1990s health care providers were interested in developing organized delivery systems. However, industry observers have increasingly questioned the sense of these efforts. Using an established taxonomy of health networks and systems, we examined whether there was a nationwide trend away from the vertical and horizontal arrangements that serve as the backbone to organized delivery systems. Studying 1994-1998, we found that both health networks and systems became less centralized in their hospital services, physician arrangements, and insurance product development. We did not find a general pathway to disintegration but instead found considerable experimentation in organizational form.

This article illustrates how a new approach to classifying health networks and systems can he used to evaluate the readiness of health care organizations to accept risk. Examples are provided from the Harris-Methodist, Henry Ford, and SSM Health Care Systems. The classification system can also be used to assist executives and physician leaders in making decisions involving the centralization of services, the number of different services to offer, and decisions to enter into various strategic alliances. The classification system can be updated to help track the evolution of the U.S. health care system over time.

This article examines the relationship between Medicaid payments and hospital costs from 1980 through 1989, using data from the American Hospital Association's Annual Survey of Hospitals. It finds that payments covered about 90% of Medicaid hospital costs until 1985, then declined to 78% in 1989. Together, Medicaid shortfalls ($4.2 billion) and unsponsored care ($8.9 billion) accounted for $13.1 billion in unreimbursed hospital costs in 1989. Most of the recent growth in unreimbursed hospital cost incurred in care for the poor is now caused by rising Medicaid shortfalls rather than increases in unsponsored care. While Medicaid shortfalls accounted for about one-fifth of unreimbursed care for the poor in 1980, they accounted for a third in 1989.

In 2011, the federal government adopted new incentives to promote the meaningful use of health information technology. Correspondingly, from 2010 to 2011, the number of hospitals with an electronic health record system increased from 15 percent to nearly 27 percent. Depending on the type of hospital, however, the news is mixed. Researchers found substantial gaps in adoption rates of at least a basic electronic record system over the past four years based on hospital size, teaching status, and location. Small, nonteaching, and rural hospitals continue to adopt electronic health record systems more slowly than other types of hospitals.