For more than 6 years, the federal government has rewarded physicians and hospitals who use electronic health record systems. Pressure to use such systems will only increase — officials have called for “full interoperability” by 2024.
But few doctors have fully embraced EHRs, according to data released Thursday by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. While four out of five physician offices have EHR systems, the survey showed, fewer than 9% of physicians reported using all the major capabilities over the course of 2015.
Sending and receiving patient health information with other providers via EHR was the most common use case, with 38% of doctors reporting one or the other. Some 30% said they had imported patient information from another source into their EHR system.
Perhaps most surprising, only about one-third said they ever searched for health information online when seeing a new patient or referral.
From state to state, this use of digital technology varied considerably. More than 60% of doctors in Oregon searched for health information online, which led the nation. At the other end was Washington, D.C., where the rate was just 15%.
The map below shows the percentage of physicians in each state who reported “electronically search[ing] for patient health information from sources outside [their] medical organization.” Click on a state to see more detail.
This article was originally published here.