Just over half of the physicians in the U.S. used a basic electronic health record (EHR) system in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); however, there is significant disparity in usage rates among some states.
According to data from the CDC’s National Electronic Health Records Survey, 2014, eight states showed significantly higher rates of EHR usage among office-based physicians – Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, California , North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wisconsin. These higher than average rates ranged from 64.7 percent in Iowa to 79.1 percent in North Dakota.
Physician usage of EHRs were significantly lower in six states, namely, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, Tennessee and Rhode Island. In Tennessee, 38.5 percent of physicians used EHRs in 2014 and New Jersey had the lowest usage rate with 29.2 percent of physicians using EHRs last year.
The remaining 36 states were not significantly different from the national average.
