More than 41,000 doctors and 2,000 U.S. hospitals, with $3 billion in federal funding, have adopted health information technology, officials said. Farzad Mostashari, national coordinator for health information technology within the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said 50 percent of primary care providers will have adopted basic electronic health record systems within a couple of years -- up from 20 percent in 2009. Although most industries have already adopted computerized records, healthcare has been slow to computerize medical records because of the cost and burden to individual doctors and hospitals, according to a report of the United Press International (UPI). "Our goal is to do whatever we can to see to it that no one gets penalized for not using health information technology in 2015, the year after federal incentive payments end and when providers who haven't adopted the technology and demonstrated meaningful use will face lower Medicare and Medicaid payments," Mostashari said in a statement.
