The twenty billion dollar bet: how the HITECH Act changed adoption

Abstract

In 2009, the HITECH Act provided a subsidy for hospitals to adopt Electronic Health Records (EHR). The Act intended to induce implementation by all types of hospitals. Studies prior to the Act found that larger urban hospitals or hospitals in a system were more likely to adopt than other types of hospitals. This study analyzes whether hospitals with those characteristics still have a higher probability of adoption. To examine my hypotheses, we created a novel data set. The new data set merged the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and American Hospital Association data together, which permitted us to analyze which types of hospitals have received an incentive payment. The results show that the pre-HITECH Act patterns do not persist after the Act; the HITECH Act's goal of promoting adoption by all types of hospitals is met.