ONC blazes past meaningful use goal for rural providers

Is the EHR digital divide between robust tech-savvy large health networks and the smaller rural and critical access hospitals as deep and craggy as we keep hearing it is? Perhaps, but there has been substantive progress to date.

ONC, in fact, has already surpassed its stated aim of enlisting 1,000 rural and critical access hospitals to meaningful use by the end of 2014.

Referencing statistics collected at July’s close, ONC officials noted that 62 percent of CAHs and 77 percent of rural hospitals with fewer than 50 beds have attested to meaningful use and, what’s more, the total having done so is 1,115.

“The small rural and CAHs that have achieved this milestone are well distributed across the country — success has not been limited to one region,” Mat Kendall, director of ONC’s office of provider support and Leila Samy, ONC’s rural health IT coordinator, wrote on the Health IT Buzz blog Friday. “With hard work and grit, these safety-net hospitals have made amazing progress since 2011, despite the real challenges they face.” Click here to read the full article by Tom Sullivan, posted online at Government HealthIT.