State Variation in Electronic Sharing of Information in Physician Offices: United States, 2015

Data from the National Electronic Health Records Survey •In 2015, the percentage of physicians who had electronically sent patient health information ranged from 19.4% in Idaho to 56.3% in Arizona. •In 2015, the percentage of physicians who had electronically received patient health information ranged from 23.6% in Louisiana and Mississippi to 65.5% in Wisconsin. •In 2015, the percentage of physicians who had electronically integrated patient health information from other providers ranged from 18.4% in Alaska to 49.3% in Delaware. •In 2015, the percentage of physicians who had electronically searched for patient health information ranged from 15.1% in the District of Columbia to 61.2% in Oregon. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) provides financial incentives to eligible providers using a certified electronic health record (EHR) system (1,2). In 2015, 77.9% of office-based physicians had a certified EHR system, up from 74.1% in 2014 (3-5). A federal plan to enhance the nation's health information technology infrastructure was published in 2015 to support information sharing (6,7). Therefore, this report uses the 2015 National Electronic Health Records Survey (NEHRS) to describe the extent to which physicians can electronically send, receive, integrate, and search for patient health information.