“Within the realm of Health IT, 2009 has been a year of unprecedented change, high expectations, and significant frustrations. As a result of ARRA and its HITECH section, which earmarked $19.2 billion intended to increase the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems by physicians and hospitals, unprecedented attention has been focused on EHR systems.
The “hook” to try to incentivize physicians to adopt EHRs (given that the adoption rate as reported in the New England Journal of Medicine was 4% for fully-functional EHRs and 13% for basic systems) revolved around offering bonus incentives through Medicare and Medicaid payments for demonstrating “meaningful use” of “certified” EHRs. Such payments would begin in 2011 and extend through 2015, and thereafter the “stick” of payment reductions for failure to adopt EHRs would start to kick in.”
Article
Robert Rowley, EHR Bloggers, 29 December 2009
