Evaluating the Trend of Digital Technology Adoption in Health Industry: The Industrial Integration and Adaptation to the HITECH Act.

Background: The electronic health records (EHR) serve as an important tool of collecting and storing health information (like demographics, physical activity volume, health care history), and well serve as a digital tool of facilitating industrial integration between health industry and others (e.g., sport industry, information industry). There appears growing digital technology adoption in health industry in response to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, and this study is to evaluate this trend.

Method: This study uses the nonparametric probability density estimation to depict the distribution of EHR transition rate in different stages, and the distribution of Herfindahl-Hirschman index is used to reveal the concentration/decentralisation degree of its adoption.

Finding: Rural and metropolitan regions experience progress in EHR promotion at both the primary stage (signed-up→go-live) and advanced stage (go-live→meaningful use). Rural areas might benefit more from this policy intervention, with a greater increase in the transition rate of EHR promotion at these two stages. The primary stage does not display a salient centralisation/decentralisation trend across specialities in health institutions, whereas the advanced stage displays a salient decentralisation trend as a growing number of specialities in health institutions demonstrate the meaningful use of EHRs. Besides, specialities in health institutions at a lower initial level of meaningful use of EHRs make greater progress at the advanced stage than their counterparts at a higher initial level.

Conclusion: The regional gap of EHR transition is narrowing since the HITECH Act. The stimulus effect at the advanced stage is more effective for specialities in health institutions.