How did ARRA promote the use of Electronic Health Records (EHRs)?

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) significantly promoted the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) primarily through the "meaningful use" incentive program. This initiative aimed to encourage healthcare providers to implement EHR systems that meet specific criteria for meaningful use, which focuses on improving patient care, ensuring the security of patient information, and enhancing healthcare efficiency.

Under this program, eligible healthcare providers could receive financial incentives if they demonstrated that their EHR systems were being used effectively to enhance patient care. These criteria were designed to ensure not only the adoption of technology but also its effective utilization in ways that would improve healthcare outcomes. Thus, the meaningful use framework established a clear set of goals that incentivized providers to transition from paper records to electronic systems, which ultimately led to a widespread increase in the adoption of EHRs across the healthcare landscape.

The other answer choices do not align with the core mechanisms established by ARRA. For example, no national database was created under ARRA that encompassed all health records, nor was a mandate established for the exclusive use of paper records. Additionally, while some hospitals might have received support for EHR software, ARRA did not provide free software as a means of encouraging EHR adoption. Instead,