Hospital leaders apprehensive about ability to meet Stage 2 requirements

Hospital business leaders lack confidence that their facilities are ready to meet both Meaningful Use Stage 2 and HIPAA requirements for protecting patient information, according a survey by New York-based audit, tax and advisory services firm KPMG. Of roughly 140 hospital and health system administrators polled, 47 percent said they were "somewhat confident" that their facilities were ready to meet Meaningful Use; the same percentage said they felt similarly about complying with all parts of HIPAA.

Thirty-six percent of respondents expressed complete confidence that their organization could meet Stage 2 requirements, while 4 percent said they were not confident.

The poll was part of a webcast on Meaningful Use Stage 2 conducted by KPMG last month.

"Attesting to Meaningful Use standards is an evolving process," KPMG Healthcare IT Enablement Leader Mike Beaty said in an announcement. "It's key for organizations to have the right clinical workflows, care delivery processes and the right support structures in place not just to meet the standards, but also to endure a sustainable transformation of these critical systems."

In a poll conducted by KPMG in April with regard to Stage 1 of Meaningful Use, less than half (48 percent) of hospital and health system leaders said they were totally confident in their organization's ability to meet those requirements; 39 percent said they were somewhat confident.

Training and change management ranked at the top of the list for 29 percent of respondents when asked about biggest challenges to meeting Stage 2 requirements. Meanwhile, 19 percent of respondents said that lack of monitoring processes for ensuring Stage 2-level implementation of technology was their biggest challenge. An additional 19 percent said that incorporating relevant electronic data capture into clinical workflow was the toughest hurdle.

In the April survey, 25 percent of respondents said that understanding the requirements necessary to demonstrate Meaningful Use was their biggest challenge.

A survey by KPMG conducted in May found many hospital business administrators are uncomfortable with their organization's financial commitment to implementing EHRs. Forty-eight percent of respondents to that poll said that they were "somewhat comfortable" with their organization's budget for EHR deployment, while only 25 percent said they were "very comfortable."

"There is a level of uneasiness as to whether there is adequate funding to complete these projects," Gary Anthony, principal with KPMG Healthcare said . "In most organizations, EHR deployment will most likely be one of the most transformational projects that they've ever undertaken, as well as one of the largest investments outside of the construction of a new hospital they've ever made. Yet, many organizations view EHR as just an IT project and that may be why we are seeing multiple extensions to scope, timeline and budget."

To learn more:
- here's the KPMG announcement
- here's the webcast