Health information technology capacity at federally qualified health centers: a mechanism for improving quality of care

Table 2 Characteristics of federally qualified health centers (N=776)

		n	weighted %	p-value
Use of EMR	Yes	321	42.71	***
	No	428	57.29
HIT Capacity	Low	386	46.65	***
	Medium	146	21.73
	High	239	31.62
Receipt of discharge summaries	Usually (75–100% of the time)	276	36.15	***
	Often (50–74% of the time)	163	21.15
	Sometimes (25–49 % of the time)	154	20.08
	Rarely (1–24% of the time)	118	15.65
	Never	50	6.97
Patient Reminders	Usually (75–100% of the time)	140	18.44	***
	Often (50–74% of the time)	127	16.46
	Sometimes (25–49% of the time)	182	23.65
	Rarely (1–24% of the time)	185	24.81
	Never	123	16.64
Getting timely appointment - specialty care	Easy	49	6.44	***
	Somewhat Difficult	200	26.15
	Very difficult	516	67.41
Incentive for patient satisfaction	Yes	164	20.9	***
	No	598	79.1
HRSA Disparity Coordination	Yes	633	87.32	***
	No	86	12.68
Overall Measure of QI Support	Yes	453	57.84	***
	Some or none	319	42.16
Physician vacancies	Yes	396	57.04	***
	No	292	42.96
Nurse vacancies	Yes	270	42.93	***
	No	354	57.07
Hospital Affiliation	All	377	47.81	0.2313
	Some or none	392	52.19
Usual Source of Care	Usual/Often	689	89.84	***
	Some/Rarely/None	78	10.16
Percent minority	Low (<5%)	116	15.62	***
	Medium (5–49%)	242	31.99
	High (50% or more)	404	52.38
Size	Large	107	15.8	***
	Medium	279	36.61
	Small	379	47.59
Region	Midwest	157	20.07	***
	South	269	36.69
	West	210	25.99
	Northeast	140	17.26
Urbanicity	Urban	526	68.67	***
	Rural	223	31.33

Source: The 2009 National Survey of Federally Qualified Health Centers; HIT-Health Information Technology.
HIT based on health centers’ possession of 16 functionalities of technologies.
* p <.05; ** p <.01; *** p <.001.

ISSN: 1472-6963