California leads the country in physician adoption of electronic health records, with 37% of the state's physicians reporting use of EHRs, according to a study released today by the California HealthCare Foundation, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Nationwide, about 28% of doctors use EHRs.
California's above-average EHR adoption rate could be attributed to the state's high number of doctors practicing in large medical groups, such as Kaiser Permanente, the study's authors said.
The study, titled "The State of Health Information Technology in California," found that physicians practicing in large medical groups are much more likely to use EHRs than those in smaller practices.
For example, about 79% of Kaiser Permanente physicians said they use EHRs, while 57% of physicians in practices with 10 or more doctors and 25% of physicians in small- to medium-size practices reported using EHRs, according to the study. Only 13% of solo practitioners said they use an EHR system (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 1/17).
Adoption barriers range from implementation costs to security and confidentiality concerns, according to the study.
CHCF today also released two other reports on health IT:
CHCF publishes
California Healthline.