EHR Adoption is Essential for Outpatient Surgery to Remain Relevant in Managed Care
by Tara Vail, Chief Growth Officer at HST Pathways
Tara Vail, Chief Growth Officer at HST Pathways
In 2009, hospitals and doctors were given financial incentives to adopt electronic health records (EHRs) through the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. Ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) were not eligible for these funds, and were therefore not incentivized like the rest of the healthcare system to implement the technology. The consequence of that differentiation is that the majority of ASCs are still charting on paper, even while the rest of the health system has moved to digital records.