HITECH Act pushes EHRs into U.S. hospitals (2009)
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act provided billions in federal incentives for hospitals to adopt electronic health records. EHR adoption among U.S. hospitals jumped from roughly one in ten to more than eight in ten within a decade.
Hospitals digitized records rapidly, meeting federal meaningful-use requirements.
Clinicians now report spending more time on data entry than direct patient care, fueling burnout and demand for AI documentation tools.
The nursing AI agent is, in effect, an attempt to undo a side effect of the EHR mandate that HITECH created.
