Electronic medical record adoption is on the rise in the United States, as many already know, but have you ever wandered exactly where EMRs are most popular among medical practices?
Well know we know, thanks to a report conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Released at the beginning of September, the CDC looked at each state in the U.S. and the percentages of office-based physicians that employed the use of an EMR in their clinic throughout 2014.
According to the data, the national average of physicians in the United States that used a “basic EHR system” was just over half at 50.5 percent.
But which state ranked the highest in basic EMR implementation?
North Dakota. The Peace Garden State boasts an impressive 79.1 percent of office-based physicians using a basic EMR in 2014.
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In fact, eight of the 50 states finished with a “significantly higher percentage” than the national average – Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wisconsin. Of those, Iowa was the lowest with a 64.7 percent usage rate.
On the other hand, only six states fell “significantly below the national average” of basic EMR usage in 2014 – Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, Tennessee and Rhode Island.
New Jersey came in with the lowest usage percentage during 2014 with just 29.2 percent of office-based physicians employing basic EHRs in their clinics.