Adoption of Health Information Technologies by Area Socioeconomic Deprivation Among US Hospitals

How does hospital adoption of health information technology (HIT) in the US vary by area socioeconomic deprivation?In this cross-sectional study including 16 646 hospital-level observations and 9218 observations for health information exchange functionalities, using 2018-2023 pooled data of nonfederal acute care hospitals, those in the most deprived areas were significantly less likely to adopt HIT, including treatment-stage telehealth, postdischarge telehealth, electronic data query capability, and data availability. Adoption increased over time across all hospitals and deprivation levels.Hospitals in under-resourced communities may not fully realize the benefits of HIT-enabled care, but targeted policies may help close geographic adoption gaps.

Corresponding Author: Alice S. Yan, MAcc, Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, University of Maryland, 4200 Valley Dr, Room 3310, College Park, MD 20742 (asyan@umd.edu).

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