@article{ref1,
title="Urban-rural differences in the availability of hospital information technology applications: a survey of Georgia hospitals",
journal="Journal of rural health",
year="2006",
author="Culler, Steven D. and Atherly, Adam and Walczak, Sandra and Davis, Anne and Hawley, Jonathan N. and Rask, Kimberly J. and Naylor, Vi and Thorpe, Kenneth E.",
volume="22",
number="3",
pages="242-247",
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.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0890-765X",
doi="10.1111/j.1748-0361.2006.00039.x",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-0361.2006.00039.x"
}