Adoption of Electronic Health Records by Hospital Service Type 2019-2021

ONC/American Hospital Association (AHA), AHA Annual Survey Information Technology Supplement, 2019 & 2021.

Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. Adoption of Electronic Health Records by Hospital Service Type 2019-2021, Health IT Quick Stat #60. April 2022.

In data from 2019 and 2021, 86% of non-Federal general acute care hospitals had adopted a 2015 Edition certified electronic health record (EHR). In contrast, only 40% of rehabilitation hospitals and 23% of specialty hospitals had adopted a 2015 Edition certified EHR.

Estimates represent the combined average of respondents to the 2019 or 2021 IT supplement (no supplement was fielded in 2020). For hospitals that responded to both surveys, their response to the 2021 supplement was used. The percent of hospitals reporting having “Any EHR” was derived from whether or not the hospital listed an EHR vendor.

Only hospitals in the 50 United States and District of Columbia were included in estimates, and Federally owned hospitals were excluded from estimates.

Service Types

Service types were defined by the list of service types assigned to hospitals in the AHA Annual Survey.

• General acute care includes hospitals with the service type “General Medical and surgical”.
• Psychiatric includes hospitals with the service type “Psychiatric”.
• Specialty includes hospitals with the service types “Surgical,” “Cancer,” “Heart,” “Obstetrics and gynecology,” “Eye, ears, nose and throat,” “Orthopedic,” and “Other specialty treatment”.
• Rehabilitation includes hospitals with the service type “Rehabilitation”.
• Children’s includes hospitals with the service types “Children’s general medical and surgical,” “Children’s psychiatric,” “Children’s rehabilitation,” “Children’s orthopedic,” “Children’s chronic disease,” “Children’s cancer”.
• Acute long-term care includes hospitals with the service type “Acute long-term care”.
  

Response Rates

We report the proportion of each type of hospitals that responded to the IT supplement survey out of those listed on the AHA Annual Survey in either year, which serves as the sampling frame for the IT supplement. The annual survey may not be a census of all hospitals of each service type.

IT Supplement Response Rate