liferay.com

Given that few physicians' practices have the up-front money to build effective EHR systems--whatever the forthcoming "meaningful use" regulations say--the transformation will take place only because of a parallel set of incentives from the entities that do have the cash: hospital systems and vendors.

So says a report from the healthcare market research firm Kalorama Information, described today in Healthcare IT News.

The article notes that several hospital systems, including Tufts and Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston and North Shore Long Island Jewish in New York already have incentive systems in place to encourage affiliated physicians (not staff) to adopt EHRs in their practices.