UCSF

Objective

To identify organizational complementarities of adoption and use of electronic health records (EHRs) and assess what organizational strategies were associated with more advanced EHR use.

Data sources

Primary survey data of US hospitals combined with secondary data from the American Hospital Association Annual Survey and IT Supplement.

Study design

In this cross-sectional study, we describe hospital organizational practices around EHR adoption and use and identify how these practices coalesce into distinct strategies. We then assess the association between those organizational strategies and adoption of advanced EHR functions.

Data collection

Primary data collection consisted of surveys sent to 797 US acute care hospitals in 2018-2019, with 451 complete respondents.

Principal findings

There was significant variation in hospital organizational practices for EHR adoption and use. Factor analysis identified practices in three domains: leadership engagement, human capital, and systems integration. Hospitals in the top quartile of the leadership engagement factor were 14 percentage points more likely to have adopted patient engagement EHR functions (P = 0.01) while hospitals in the top quartile of human capital were 14 percentage points less likely to have adopted these functions (P = 0.02). Hospitals in the top quartile of systems integration were 12 percentage points more likely to have adopted patient engagement functions (P = 0.02) and 14 percentage points more likely to have adopted EHR data analytics functions (P = 0.02).

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that specific organizational strategies are associated with more advanced EHR adoption. Hospital leaders interested in realizing more value from their EHR investment may find it useful to know that there is an association between adoption of more advanced EHR functions, and engaging senior leadership as well as building connectivity between clinical and administrative systems.