Urban‐Rural Differences in the Availability of Hospital Information Technology Applications: A Survey of Georgia Hospitals

Abstract

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.