The agreement and internal consistency of national hospital EMR measures

There has been national focus on increasing the use of electronic medical records (EMR) in hospitals because of their potential to improve care. Previous research has examined EMR use and reported an inconsistent relationship between EMR use and performance. This study examines the agreement between and the internal consistency of two national datasets that measure hospital EMR use. Data include the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and the American Hospital Association (AHA). This analysis is essential to determine the strength and challenges of the nationally available EMR measures that are used in research, which informs national policy and practice. The results show very poor agreement between the two national datasets on hospital EMR use. The datasets demonstrate some internal consistency. In the absence of a gold standard measure of EMR use, researchers must be aware of the limitations of national EMR measures, and future research may validate the datasets.