EHR Adoption Rate Exceeds Expectations

The federal Department of Health and Human Resources reached its year-end goal for meaningful use of electronic health records seven months early.

Three months ago, the heads of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT dubbed 2012 the “Year of Meaningful Use,” setting a goal of 100,000 health-care providers’ achieving meaningful use of EHRs by the end of the year. Incentive payments for adopting and using electronic records come through CMS in the form of Medicare and Medicaid incentives. Providers must demonstrate that their EHRs meet federal performance standards. More than 110,000 eligible professionals and 2,400 hospitals were receiving meaningful-use incentive payments by the end of May, according to HHS. The first EHR incentive payments were made in January 2011.