Evidence of an emerging digital divide among hospitals that care for the poor.
Some hospitals that disproportionately care for poor patients are falling behind in adopting electronic health records (EHRs). Data from a national survey indicate early evidence of an emerging digital divide: U.S. hospitals that provide care to large numbers of poor patients also had minimal use of EHRs. These same hospitals lagged others in quality performance as well, but those with EHR systems seemed to have eliminated the quality gap. These findings suggest that adopting EHRs should be a major policy goal of health reform measures targeting hospitals that serve large populations of poor patients.
Jha
Ashish K
AK
Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. ajha@hsph.harvard.edu
DesRoches
Catherine M
CM
Shields
Alexandra E
AE
Miralles
Paola D
PD
Zheng
Jie
J
Rosenbaum
Sara
S
Campbell
Eric G
EG
D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000191:economics*; D006751:Hospital Information Systems; D006761:Hospitals / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011203:Poverty; D014481:United States