The Flex Monitoring Team recently released a report comparing Critical Access Hospitals to other U.S. Hospitals regarding their level of meaningful use adoption of health information technology. The results, based on adoption levels in 2008, indicate that CAHs “are significantly less likely than other hospitals to have adopted several key applications that are preconditions for meaningful use”, and that the ARRA incentive funding will likely be insufficient given the financial situation facing most CAHs.

Other Key Findings
• Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs)are significantly less likely than other US hospitals to have adopted several key applications that are preconditions for “meaningful use” of health information technology.
• The most frequently adopted technology applications in CAHs are order communication
systems, which have been adopted by almost two-thirds of CAHs, and radiology picture archiving communication systems (PACS), which have been adopted by over half of CAHs.
• Fewer than 14% of CAHs have an electronic medical record (EMR) with a clinical data repository and some clinical decision support capability.
• Fewer than three percent of CAHs have an EMR with Computerized Prescriber Order Entry (CPOE) and an electronic medication administration record(eMAR).