Just about half of the hospitals (44 percent) participating in a Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Analytics survey appear to be "likely" or "most likely" to meet Stage 1 of Meaningful Use requirements. The data was released this week at the HIMSS11 conference in Orlando.
The hospitals were asked to indicate if they currently had the capability to achieve the 14 core measures and 10 menu measures for meaningful use; if they did not currently have the capability to achieve a measure, they were asked what time frame they expected to have that capability.
Of the 999 hospitals that have responded to the survey since May 2010, 25 percent said they already have the capability to meet 10 or more of the meaningful use process core measures and at least five of the menu items by May 2012. HIMSS Analytics now has 24 questions on the Stage 1 Meaningful Use criteria included in its annual survey of more than 5,000 non-governmental hospitals in the U.S.
Among the 44 percent of respondents responding that they are close to meeting Stage 1 core measures, 58 percent of that group indicated that they expect to achieve all of those measures by May 2012--the end of the period covered by the survey conducted by HIMSS Analytics, a nonprofit subsidiary of HIMSS.
For hospitals to qualify for the financial incentives as part of the EHR incentives program, they must demonstrate meaningful use of EHR technology by 2013. In a survey released last month by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, about four-fifths of the nation's hospitals said they intended to sign up for incentive payments.
For more details:
- see the HIMSS release
- here's the article from DOTmed news