U.S. doctors and hospitals' EHR use is up.

• Position: EHR - Electronic health records - Brief article

In just three years, 40% of office-based physicians and 42% of hospitals in the United States have implemented at least a basic electronic health records (EHR) system, according to a report coauthored by the Robert Wood Johnson Harvard School of Public Health, and Mathematica Policy Research.

"Given the size of our country, that's amazing progress in a very short time period," co-author Ashish Jha, M.D., told US News and World Report. Jha is an associate professor with the Harvard School of Public Health.

The researchers credit three factors for driving the adoption of EHRs: society's increasing reliance on information technology, new federal funding to support the purchase of EHR systems, and future penalties for those who don't use EHRs.

"It's the right incentives at the right time," Jha said. "Doctors and hospitals have been thinking about buying electronic health records [systems] for some time. This is where our society is moving. But the finances have been a challenge. The federal incentives have been very well targeted. They were well...