Most hospital chief information officers (CIOs) believe that their facilities will achieve Meaningful Use and receive payments from the electronic health record incentive program, but it may take several years for them to reach that goal, according to a recent survey from the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME).
The survey found that 26 percent of responding CIOs reported that their hospitals have qualified to receive incentive payments, but only 13 percent have received that funding, mostly via the Medicaid incentive program. As of mid September, 53 percent had registered for one of the incentive programs.
However, most respondents were hopeful that they eventually would achieve Meaningful Use and receive incentive payments, with 93 percent expecting to do so during the first three years of the program, and 68 percent expecting to by 2012 or 2013.
Five percent of CIOs reported that they had not registered for the program because they lacked the financial or staff capacity.
Interestingly, 25 percent of the respondents reported that they hoped to achieve the Meaningful Use objectives in Stage 2 of the incentive program, but only if implementation of Stage 2 is delayed. More than one-third wouldn't predict if they could meet Stage 2 objectives.
Answers reflected the responses of 198 CHIME members representing 656 hospitals throughout the nation.
To learn more:
- read the survey report (.pdf)
- check out this Health Data Management article