A new study, led by Ashish Jha, MD, an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and Catherine DesRoches of Massachusetts General Hospital, found little difference in cost and quality among the 3,000 hospitals that were in various stages of electronic health record initiatives. If you just stopped at the headline, it's great fodder for those who believe EHRs are over-hyped. But when you read the details of the study's findings, it's actually a story in favor of EHRs.

The large healthcare providers, including Cleveland Clinic, Intermountain Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente and the Mayo Clinic, were the ones who showed the most gains from the technology. Not surprisingly, they are also the ones who have invested a lot of money in their systems and have mature systems and processes in place because they were early adopters. Kudos to the large health-system early adopters who had the vision and the deep pockets to implement health IT fully.

It's also important to note the study's focus on effective use of EHRs. Industry experts have pointed out that even when providers implement EHRs they have not used the systems to their fullest capability. It's not enough to just get the system. And it's not enough just to use a few of the system's capabilities. That's why ONC is pushing the meaningful use criteria on providers to get the federal reimbursement funds. It's critical to have that mechanism in place to ensure success.

Another thing the study really highlights is the fact that it's going to take a number of years to realize the overall value of having computerized health records. In a time of instant gratification on the consumer level and business world, that's unacceptable to many. Note that the study looked at gains nationally. In the last year, I've been to presentations or spoken with physicians to know that there are organizations and small physician offices that have gained benefits from their EHR within a year of the implementations. That's what matters to them ultimately - that they reaped benefits in cost savings, administrative and workflow efficiencies and better clinical outcomes.

Karen Bell, MD, former senior official for HHS, responded that the study's findings were not a surprise. A health IT expert now working for a nonprofit group, Bell said it would take another five years or more to see overall benefits. As she so eloquently concluded, "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't go forward." I whole-heartedly agree.