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EHR adoption of all physicians in the US. Source: DesRoches et al..
Federal and state governments, insurance companies and other large medical institutions are heavily promoting the adoption of electronic health records. The US Congress included a formula of both incentives and penalties for EMR/EHR adoption versus continued use of paper records as part of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, enacted as part of the, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The 21st Century Cures Act, passed in 2016, prohibited information blocking, which had slowed interoperability. In 2018, the Trump administration announced the MyHealthEData initiative to further allow for patients to receive their health records. The federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology leads these efforts.
One VA study estimates its electronic medical record system may improve overall efficiency by 6% per year, and the monthly cost of an EMR may be offset by the cost of only a few "unnecessary" tests or admissions. Jerome Groopman disputed these results, publicly asking "how such dramatic claims of cost-saving and quality improvement could be true". A 2014 survey of the American College of Physicians member sample, however, found that family practice physicians spent 48 minutes more per day when using EMRs. 90% reported that at least 1 data management function was slower after EMRs were adopted, and 64% reported that note writing took longer. A third reported that it took longer to find and review medical record data, and 32% reported that it was slower to read other clinicians' notes.