Just 1 Doc in 10 Meets Meaningful Use Criteria

More physicians are using electronic health records (EHRs), but a significantly smaller proportion of eligible physicians say they have met the first stage of meaningful use criteria, a study found.

In a national survey, 43.5% of physicians in March 2012 reported having a basic EHR -- up from 34% in 2011 -- but only 9.8% said they met meaningful use criteria, reported Catherine M. DesRoches, PhD, of Mathematica Policy Research in Cambridge, Mass., and colleagues.

"Few physicians could meet meaningful use criteria in early 2012. Among those meeting the standard, using computerized systems for the panel management tasks were difficult," DesRoches and colleagues wrote online in Annals of Internal Medicine. "Results support the growing evidence that using the basic data input capabilities of an EHR does not translate into the greater opportunity that these technologies promise."

The results follow a 2012 survey from the National Center for Health Statistics showing that only about a quarter of physicians had computers that were equipped to meet Stage 1 meaningful use objectives.

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Source: Med Page Today