By Healthcare Facilities Today

A key tool to improving the nation's health care system is the increased use of electronic health records by doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers. These electronic tools serve as the infrastructure to implementing reforms that improve care – many of which are part of the Affordable Care Act, according to a blog on the HealthcareIT News website.

Hospitals are using these tools to reduce mistakes and readmissions, provide patients with more information that enable them to stay healthy, and allow for rewarding healthcare providers for delivering quality, not quantity, of care, wrote Karen DeSalvo,  the department of Health and Human Services' national coordinator for health information technology.

"The adoption of those tools is reflected today in a release from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics which provides a view of the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program and indicates the program is healthy and growing steadily."

According to 2013 data from the annual National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey:

• Nearly 80% of office-based physicians used some type of electronic health record system, an increase of 60 percentage points since 2001 and nearly double the percent in 2008 (42%), the year before the Health Information Technology and Economic and Clinical Health Act passed as part of the Recovery Act in 2009.

• About half of office-based physicians surveyed said they use a system that qualifies as a “basic system,” up from just 11% in 2006.

• Almost 70% of office-based physicians noted their intent to participate in the EHR incentive program.

The report also noted that 13% of physicians who responded said they both intended to participate in the incentive program and had a system that could support 14 of the Meaningful Use Stage 2 “core set of objectives,” ahead of target dates, the blog said. This survey was performed in early 2013 – before 2014 certified products were available.

Read the blog.