In December 2004, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices awarded the Fund a "Cheers Award" in recognition of its efforts to improve patient safety

This year has witnessed important progress toward a national health information network, which has the potential to improve the safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of care. In a Fund-supported study appearing in the Annals of Internal Medicine,⁽⁷⁾ Rainu Kaushal, M.D., estimated that achieving an ideal national health information network—including electronic health record systems, electronic claims submissions, computerized physician order entry, and electronic prescribing, among other features—will cost $156 billion over five years in capital investment and $48 billion in annual operating costs.

Hospitals would be most affected financially by the investments required to acquire hardware, while the cost of interoperability would be borne mostly by physicians, Kaushal says. Her analysis should be a useful guide for the newly established Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology as well as for lawmakers debating the merits of pending health information legislation.

Another article, prepared by Fund staff and published in Medscape General Medicine, demonstrates that physicians face specific challenges in adopting information technology.⁽⁸⁾ Based on Fund survey data, the analysis revealed that only a quarter of doctors' practices routinely use technology to improve operational efficiency and clinical care. Diffusion of technologies such as electronic health records, computerized prescribing and order entry, clinical decision support, and physician—patient e-mail correspondence has been slow. Physicians in solo and small group practices were most likely to cite barriers to adoption of health IT—a finding that the authors say will require special attention, since three-quarters of U.S. physicians provide care in such practices.