Small hospitals — or those with fewer than 100 beds, and thus fewer resources — say they are worried whether they’ll be able to comply with new federal rules on electronic transmission of health data aimed at meeting the dual threat of bioterrorism and bird-flu pandemic.

“We are caught in the middle — do we replace anesthesia machines that no longer will be serviced or do I spend $200,000 on software for health IT or do I try to make the payroll?”

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