National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in USA

A study completed by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and published in the journal Health Affairs finds growing evidence of the benefits of health information technology (HIT). Using methods that were employed by two previous independent reviews, the new study finds that 92 percent of articles on HIT reached conclusions that showed overall positive effects of HIT on key aspects of care including quality and efficiency of health care. In addition, the study finds increasing evidence of benefits for all health care providers, not just the larger health IT "leader" organizations (i.e., early adopters of HIT) that have provided much of the data regarding experience with HIT in the past. The previous reviews identified a gap between "leaders" and non-leaders in demonstrating benefits from HIT. This article brings us much more up-to-date, both in our confidence regarding the overwhelming evidence of the benefits of adoption and use of HIT, and also in our understanding of problem areas that still need to be addressed, " said David Blumenthal, M.D., the national coordinator for HIT and one of the authors of the review. "This review is important because it helps us correct for the lag in evidence that occurs naturally in the dynamic HIT field, where changes in technology and accelerating adoption cause the old literature to become quickly outdated. The review included articles published from July 2007 up to February 2010, following up on earlier reviews of articles from 1995 to 2004 and from 2004 to 2007. This latest review initially surveyed more than 4,000 peer-reviewed articles, of which 154 were found qualified for the parameters of the study, a number similar to the previous efforts.

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