75 percent of hospitals anticipated that their organization would qualify for Meaningful Use stage 2 incentives in 2014, according to recent HIMSS Analytics report. The report, “Hospital Readiness to Meet Meaningful Use Stage 2” explores data collected by HIMSS Analytics and assesses the readiness of Eligible Hospitals to meet Stage 2 requirements.
As part of the part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program offers hospitals a roadmap for an incentivized-transition from a paper-based environment to one in which Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are used to document all patient care.
According to the report, 4,510 hospitals and 405,000 clinicians had registered to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid Incentive Programs with the federal government dispersing $9.5 billion in payments to eligible providers and hospitals through the Medicare Incentive Program. Another $6 billion has been dispersed through the Medicaid Incentive Program.
Key Findings
The report found:
- 68 percent of eligible hospitals had purchased software from a vendor that has been certified to the 2014 Edition certification criteria.
- 25 percent of hospitals are planning to invest at least an additional $1 million to achieve meaningful use stage 2
- 75 percent of respondents to a recent study indicated that they anticipated that their organization would qualify for the incentives available through Stage 2 in 2014
- Incentive dollars have proven to be a strong driver to the adoption of medical records
- 6 percent of respondents were least likely to report providing patients the ability to view online, download and transmit information about their hospital admission.
- Only 26 percent ndicated that they have the capability to record family health history for at least 20 percent of unique patients admitted to an inpatient unit or the ED during the EHR reporting period.
Report Background
418 hospitals provided data to HIMSS Analytics in the first six months of 2013. The questions presented to eligible hospitals by HIMSS Analytics address a hospital’s capabilities to meet the Stage 2 MU criteria based on the technology they presently have in place.Two-thirds of the hospitals included in this sample (65 percent) are general medical/surgical hospitals. The remaining third are critical access hospitals (21 percent), academic medical centers (seven percent) and other hospitals (six percent), including pediatric hospitals. The research is meant to provide gauge the industry’s readiness to achieve Meaningful Use stage 2.
