High-level adoption of electronic health records

The adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) is now a national priority, but evidence shows that the level of typical adoption is low. We describe the goal of "high-level adoption" of an EHR system defined as a community of clinicians using an EHR system to share patient information, and create a summary of a patient's health, through the timely documentation of care, as well as through effective communication among caregivers, with a focus on patient safety and efficient use of resources. There are 10 key principles to achieving high level-adoption. These are: (1) shared medication lists; (2) shared patient problem lists; (3) established guidelines for communication about patient information among clinicians; (4) use of standard terminology; (5) preventive services; (6) integration of external data; (7) computerized provider order entry; (8) regional health information exchange; (9) adoption of clinical decision support; and (10) reuse of data for public health and research.