Since 2009, extra Medicare and Medicaid payments have been available to eligible clinicians and hospitals that become "meaningful users" of certified electronic health records, or EHRs. So far, the policy has doubled the proportion of U.S. physicians and tripled the proportion of hospitals with basic EHRs. In the Annals of Internal Medicine, Commonwealth Fund president David Blumenthal, M.D., former National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, weighs in on whether the federal government's investment in EHRs has been justified.