- A new report from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has concluded that subsidies provided under the HITECH Act haven’t been effective at increasing adoption of EMRs by hospitals. After evaluating EMR data from 2008 as a baseline, and calculating the amount of federal subsidies for new EMR adoption, researchers found that the 2011 U.S. hospital EMR adoption rate would’ve been achieved just two years later, in 2013, even without the help of federal incentives.