Adoption of Electronic Health Records by Practices of Nursing Home Providers and Wi-Fi Availability in Nursing Homes

Electronic health record (EHR) systems improve clinical decision making, health information exchange, and quality improvement.1,2 Federal policies encourage EHR adoption through Meaningful Use programs. However, most of these policies target acute and primary care.3,4 Lacking incentives, nursing homes (NHs) historically lagged behind outpatient clinics and hospitals in EHR adoption.5 Recent studies suggest increased rate of EHR adoption by NHs, ranging from 40% to 84%.2,6 Furthermore, NH primary care providers (PCPs) often use different EHRs from the NH themselves, which have their own EHR adoption struggles.