Citation

Culler SD, Atherly A, Walczak S, Davis A, Hawley JN, Rask KJ, Naylor V, Thorpe KE. J. Rural Health 2006; 22(3): 242-247.

Affiliation

Department of Health Policy and Management, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. sculler@sph.emory.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, National Rural Health Association, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1748-0361.2006.00039.x

PMID

16824169

Abstract

CONTEXT: Information technology (IT) has been identified as a potential tool for improving the safety of health care delivery. PURPOSE: To determine if there are significant differences between urban and rural community hospitals in the availability of selected IT functional applications and technological devices. METHODS: A mailed survey of community hospitals in Georgia assessing the current availability of IT applications (54.6% response rate). FINDINGS: Georgia hospitals reported having 63.6% of 56 possible functional applications computerized but only 52.9% of 41 technological devices. Compared to rural hospitals, urban hospitals had significantly more functional applications computerized (38.0 vs 31.8, P = .031) and technological devices available (23.9 vs 18.2, P = .016). Urban hospitals had significantly (P < .05) more IT applications available in 4 areas: emergency room services (7 of 10), surgical/operating room (8 of 12), laboratory (7 of 12), and radiology (5 of 11). Overall, the availability of IT applications was bimodal in rural hospitals: over 40% of rural hospitals had adopted over 70% of all applications, while approximately 26% of rural hospitals had adopted less than 30%. CONCLUSIONS: Some of the observed urban/rural differences in availability of IT applications may be due to differences in the scope of services provided by rural hospitals, in particular laboratories, radiology departments, emergency rooms, and surgery/operating rooms. Nevertheless, the bimodal distribution of IT applications adopted in rural hospitals raises concerns about the ability of selected rural hospitals to take advantage of regional data-sharing initiatives and maintain quality of patient care in the future.

Language: en