Study: Rural Hospitals Struggle with Increased Data Demands

A Nebraska study found electronic health record adoption sits at 74% for urban hospitals versus 64% for rural ones, part of what industry voices call an “interoperability crisis.” Rural facilities often run older systems that cannot easily share data with modern platforms, leading to repeated tests, fragmented care, and higher costs.

Compounding the problem: rural hospitals typically have one or two IT staff managing everything, some lack reliable broadband, and reimbursement now depends on filing numerous reports to different state and federal agencies, each wanting the data formatted differently. Phillip Mues of Cherry County Hospital in Nebraska said reformatting the same information for multiple agencies can require weekly calls for up to two years.

Angela Chubb of Nordic consulting said the burden is layered on top of already-thin staffing and financing, with rural facilities managing costs and resources until they hit a point they may not be able to sustain. The people actually doing the reporting say the agencies collecting it rarely seem to notice how small their teams are.

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