Impact of the HITECH financial incentives on EHR adoption in small, physician-owned practices

This study's principal finding is that the HITECH financial incentives were influential in accelerating EHR adoption among small, physician-owned practices in the United States. A second finding is that physician decision-making on EHR adoption in the United States has not matched what would be predicted by the literature on network effects. The market's failure to converge on a dominant design in the absence of interoperability means it will be difficult to achieve widespread exchange of patients' clinical information among different health care provider organizations.