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.
