Adoption of Electronic Medical Records in U.S. Hospitals

The move to electronic medical records (EMRs) is becoming increasingly prevalent in health care delivery systems in the United States.

Due to the enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, there has been a rise in the number of federal investments in programs that increase EMR adoption. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act portion of this stimulus law provides payments for providers that show they have reached the standard for “meaningful use”. This has led more hospitals to adopt EMR, though they have had different experiences in adopting electronic medical records.

There are several steps that need to be taken in order to adopt electronic medical records.

Hospitals have been using different suppliers of health data systems in order to adopt electronic medical records. The key suppliers of health data systems are Epic Systems, Allscripts, Meditech, Cerner, IBM, McKesson, Siemens, Healthland, CPSI, and GE Healthcare.

The decision of choosing an EMR vendor like Epic or Meditech can fall on either hospital leadership or the corporate level based on the size of the system. If an organization only has one hospital, the hospital leaders select the vendor. If the system is larger, the decision is made at the corporate level, though several people from the hospitals remain involved. There are several criteria for deciding the vendor. Sentara Healthcare was able to make their selection by looking for a vendor with high outpatient care integration, technical support at all levels of integration, and one that customized a system to their needs.

The length of time it takes to implement electronic medical records can vary but usually takes two to three years. The first stage of implementation is called “design, build, validate,” where the vendor is selected and the plans are put in place. This is followed by a “big bang” implementation, which means all the departments transfer to the system at once, due to the interconnectedness of hospitals this is necessary.

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