The widespread use of electronic health records has significant potential to improve health care quality. Yet according to a new study conducted by IHP, only 4% of physicians in the United States who provide direct patient care report using a fully-functioning electronic records system.  This contrasts starkly with many industrialized countries, where most primary care physicians use computers in their practices.

This definitive study, supported by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and published in the New England Journal of Medicine (July 12, 2008), assessed physicians’ adoption of electronic health records, their satisfaction with them, perceived effects on quality of care, and barriers to adoption. This is the first study to delineate key functions <more...>